Notebooks, Not Love Notes
by Ala Verity
Summary: When moon sprites send Usagi a diary, her private wishes become a public nightmare—because suddenly, everyone has fallen in love with Chiba Mamoru! Can Usagi escape the mayhem unscathed, or will steamy revelations be made before things return to normal?
1. Prologue

I would first like to kick myself for posting this. I told myself I wouldn't before it was done, but that being said, I also really plan to update this story! I really, really do! (FwD, you say? *whistles*) Okay, at least I'll see what I can do. No more than a month until the next, I promise!

With that out of the way—hi! Welcome to my fourth dive into the world of fanfiction, and my intended first-completed chaptered fic. Glad to have you here! For all of you who have been awaiting this story's online publication, I hope the wait was worth it!

This story is a humorous/romantic first-season AU, revolving around our favorite obstinate would-be couple, Usagi and Mamoru! So what happens when Mamoru _really_ ticks Usagi off, and she makes a wish that everyone in the world would hate him?

Well, you're about to find out!

I've taken liberties with Usagi's character, as you will soon see—her intelligence level has been…er, _adjusted_ to give the story a hopefully more amusing narrator. But it will be explained later on in the story, so no worries!

Pearl, thanks for eyeballing my story! Other than that, I was pretty much on my own for this one, so here goes!

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I wouldn't be writing about it here. Sailor Moon, not mine, end of story. This story and all of its ideas, however, do belong to me. The fire-breathing dragon sitting next to me will turn you into a lump of charcoal that will be packaged in the stocking of a naughty child on Christmas if you attempt to steal it ("it" being the story, not the stocking—you can steal the stocking).

With that said, read on!

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Notebooks, Not Love Notes

Ala Verity

Prologue

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Mystical beings work in strange ways. Up high in the nighttime sky, on that glowing pearly orb we call the moon, is where our story begins. Of course, the ways of the spirits living on the moon have always been mysterious and inexplicable to the simple-minded mortals of Earth. But perhaps it would be simpler to start the tale by looking at two such worldly creatures, whose lives were anything but ordinary…

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"I hate you!"

"Glad to hear it, Odango."

"Glad to…to say it, stupid!"

"And once again, ze-ro points for originality. How…_original_. Ding ding ding, looks like we have a loser, ladies and gentlemen!"

"Yeah, _you_!"

Welcome to my life. I'm Tsukino Usagi and…well, this is it. An ordinary, boring life to go with an ordinary, boring teenage girl. Fifteen, to be exact.

"Go buy a book to use as firewood like you usually do, Odango. Is that where all your precious schoolbooks go? Straight to the incinerator? Or would your brain fry from overuse if you even tried lighting a match?"

And _this_, this is Chiba Mamoru. Upperclassman extraordinaire, master of all trades, and loving it. I, on the other hand, absolutely loathe every moment that I'm reminded of his status. Eighteen years old, and hated by only one person in the entire universe: Me.

"I'd be able to do it if it meant lighting _your_ head on fire, jerkwad!"

"If you can even reach that high, little girl."

Ooh, the nerve of that man!

"Here you go, Usagi-chan—" came a cheery voice from behind the counter. "One double-malt chocolate milkshake with whipped cream and a cherry on top, just like you like it! Enjoy!"

"Oooh!" I grabbed the delectable treat with both hands and took a nice, long sip. Nothing like sweets to wash down your troubles with! "Mmm—thanks, Motoki!"

That's Furuhata Motoki, owner of the arcade I come to every day after school. Talk about a heaven-sent angel compared to Satan sitting next to me! He knows exactly what I like—and that's consistency! But speaking of Satan…

"Can't you find somewhere _else_ to sit, dummy?" I complained through my mouthful of creamy shake, eyeing the man on my left balefully. "There not enough room in this arcade for you, or are you just too fat to fit anywhere else?"

Every day, my good and faithful friend Motoki witnesses one chapter of the never-ending feud between my archenemy, Chiba Mamoru, and myself. I swear it's like trying to kill a hydra—every time you chop a head off, you have to wrestle with three more. Mamoru doesn't have multiple heads, but he sure as heck won't die, either.

That's my after-school life in a nutshell: I spend exactly one-and-a-half hours of my life five days a week this way, six times if I'm having a bad week. That's an average of seven-and-a-half hours a week, and, allowing room for unfortunate rencontres and the length of the school year, that means I spend approximately 375 hours a year with this man from the underworld who couldn't get across the Styx because he was deemed too black-hearted. To top it all off, I've known him for almost two years now, which makes it 750 hours that I've been exposed to his noxious aura, the equivalent of being trapped in a room with him without respite for 31 days. Ladies and gentlemen, that's a January, March, May, July, August, October, or December straight that I've had to stand him! Who said I couldn't do math when it really matters?

And yet, here I am. Sitting in the arcade next to a complete douchebag on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. I always come back for more only because, as I've mentioned, I like consistency. I do _not_, however, as I've also mentioned, like HIM. But all of this is useless talk if I can't apply it to the here and now. After all, there's no time like the present!

Presently, I looked up expectantly, twiddling my straw with my fingers. Mamoru was ignoring me. I huffed impatiently, glanced at the clock, and back at him out of the corner of my eye. He had out his latest vile textbook, a black-bound, dense-looking book on jean-tectic…something or other. Coupled with the glasses that appeared out of nowhere (I later learned that he only wore them for show) and a cup of steaming hot coffee, the man looked sophisticated.

I could just _feel_ the hate-o-meter rise up a notch.

"I hate you," I said thickly, sucking up another gulp of milkshake.

He didn't look up from his reading. "The feelings are reciprocated with equal alacrity, I assure you."

Ouch. That one smarted. I think he could tell that I didn't understand—_meant_ for me not to understand, more like—and smirked into the pages of the book.

"What's the matter, Odango? Head too filled with whipped cream to answer? Or did you not get that the first time?"

"Of—Of course I got that!" I lied angrily. Mamoru only grinned wider, and I felt tears well up in my eyes despite myself.

"Watch out, Bellagio," he laughed, finally putting down his book on the counter. "Looks like you've got some competition here! Better get your mop ready, Motoki, I think I hear the flashflood warnings sounding. Heck, bring the whole Navy!"

I bit my lip hard, pointing out shakily, "Japan d-doesn't…have a Navy!"

But nobody was listening. My one moment of intellectual glory, and everybody was too darn busy laughing at the jerk's latest slight. It wasn't fair! Through my watery eyes and the furious roaring in my ears, I could barely make out Motoki, leaning over the counter shaking his head at Mamoru. I watched the blonde say something softly and saw Mamoru chuckle, unrepentant.

That was it! I jumped to my feet. 31 straight days of this—750 hours of his taunting, his teasing, his insults…and to crown the whole ordeal: every, damn, person in the world loved him for being the king of all JERKS!

"I hate you!" I yelled, blinking back the threatening wave of tears in my eyes and clenching my fists. "I hate you, Chiba Mamoru, and I wish you'd know what it's like to have everyone hate you!"

Grabbing my bookbag, I stalked to the entrance and made sure I slammed the door behind me as hard as I could, choosing to ignore the bemused look on Mamoru's face as I swept past him. Of course, I forgot in my fury that this was the twentieth century, and that the glass sliding doors were automatic.

"WAGH!" My hand did an odd little twitch as it swung behind me like a pitcher's arm winding up for the throw, before my momentum carried me and—EEK! It was with a little shriek that I sent myself flying into the air. "Oomph!"

_Thud_. I kissed linoleum.

The sound of Motoki's hurrying, pattering feet to help me up…was drowned out by the roaring laughter of a devil at the counter. I swept myself up off the floor before anyone could help me and whipped out of the arcade. I was ushered out with a shout of laughter and a loud, "Nice one, Odango!"

Wringing my hair furiously all the way back home, only one thought ran through my head as I stomped down the sidewalk: 'I hate you, Chiba Mamoru!'

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Seven and a half minutes' distance from the arcade later…

"I HATE him!"

I threw the dirtiest look I could manage at an innocent pedestrian on the sidewalk, who promptly crossed the street as fast as he could without running. I momentarily forgot my anger as I watched said victim weaving like the frog from the arcade game the entire way across, without once looking at the oncoming traffic—he was too busy keeping his eyes on me to make sure I wasn't preparing for a back attack. I think he thought I'd been bitten by a rabid rabbit or something.

In his defense, it was a perfectly legitimate assumption to make. I probably looked like I had been possessed by furies from hell.

Of course, good things never last long. He crossed the street safely and disappeared into the nearest shelter. Bye-bye, blissful forgetfulness. WHAM! Helloooo, reality check!

"ARGH! I HATE HIM!"

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Meanwhile, up above…I mean, way, WAY, above all that was happening in my own miserable little world…

"What do you think?"

"What do I think what?"

"What do you think about having ourselves a little bit of fun?" The girl draped in a white, flowing gown looked down at the big blue orb below them and giggled mischievously. "Come on, Thoth, just think about it! Things'll be entertaining around here for a change!"

Thoth eyed the girl skeptically, watching as she ran her fingers through long, golden strands of cascading hair. "Oh…I don't know, Selene. What good ever comes out of your schemes?"

"Ah ah ah! Not so fast." She gingerly pulled a small book from out of thin air. It had strange markings on its black cover and a spine that glowed almost effulgent, despite the impenetrable darkness shrouding their home, the moon. "What do you think of _this_, hm?"

She handed Thoth the book, which he flipped through disinterestedly before looking back up at her, frowning. "It's just a notebook, Selene. A blank notebook."

Selene smiled mysteriously at him. No matter what anyone said about mortals not understanding the enigmatic ways of divine moon creatures, Thoth had yet to figure out the one sitting in front of him himself. For that, he couldn't blame the earth-dwellers for denying their existence; it only made things complicated!

"It's not _just_ a notebook, Thoth, dear," she said silkily, taking the book back from him and stroking its spine tenderly. "It's an Alethian Spectacle. This Spectacle can assume the form of normal, everyday objects—in this case, I've asked it to disguise itself as a notebook."

Thoth eyed it warily. "Where did you get it?" he asked. Magical objects always made him cautious, ever since he had nearly blown an ear off with an Ifrit Torcher when he was five.

Selene laughed, a lilting, musical sound. "You think I would actually tell you that and get us both in trouble? No…" she smiled to herself, "We're going to send this…_notebook_ down to Earth for a few days. Just to see what happens."

Her friend gulped. "And what _is_ going to happen?"

"Oh," she replied loftily, "you'll see." And with a sly wink and knowing look at the mirror sitting in front of her, she let the book drop lightly from her fingers, into the boundless night sky beneath them.

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Safely back at the Tsukino residence on Earth…

"ARGH! I hate him!" My bookbag felt my wrath as I flung it mercilessly onto the couch and stormed upstairs, taking satisfaction in successfully slamming my door shut behind me. I threw myself onto my bed.

"Jerk, jerk, jerk!" I shouted at nobody in particular. Vent, Usagi! Nobody's home! Rant to your heart's desire! "I hate him, I hate him!"

_Why_ did I hate him?

"I'll tell you why I hate him!" I yelled, answering my thoughts aloud. "I hate him because he thinks he's so upstanding and—and cool! I hate the way he runs his hand through his hair when he's about to tease me! I hate how he gets this twinkle in his stupid blue eyes before an insult! I hate how—"

Ten minutes later found me still raving, slowly shredding the carpet beneath my feet as I paced the room in a flurry of fury.

"—and I hate, hate, hate how NOBODY hates him! Nobody! Everyone absolutely adores him, just because he's Chiba Mamoru, star student and a charming, dashing knight riding up on his white horse!" I spun on my heel and headed for the opposite wall. "And I just wish that—"

"Usagi, dear?"

"Huh?" I slammed into the wall as I turned unwittingly to see my mother's head pop into my room. _Wham!_ Ouch, that one was going to leave a bruise…

"I thought I heard you, honey," she said, pushing the door open once she saw that I wasn't busy committing homicide to match my angry shouting. She had gotten used to my controlled-environment freak accidents a long time ago, hence the lack of motherly haste to see if I had split my head open on the wall or not. "I just got home. How was your day?"

"Horrible," I groaned, pushing myself off the floor and, upon seeing that my skull was still perfectly intact, flopping down instead onto my bed. "I hate weekdays."

"Anything you want to talk about, Usa?" Mom said, sitting down on the bed next to me. Her hand came up to my forehead and stroked me gently. It made me feel a little bit better—not good enough to talk about the test I had failed in Math, mind you, but enough to open me up just a tad.

"I don't know," I sighed, letting my eyes drift close as her hand worked its way soothingly across my forehead. "Sometimes I wonder…I mean, some people are just so—so—"

"Infuriating?"

"Yeah…Yeah, that. And tedious. And annoying. I get tired of it sometimes, that's all."

"I know," she said softly, bringing comfort with her words that only mothers know how to bring. "I know how it is, but we live, we keep going, we move on…"

A comfortable silence settled between us for a while, and pretty soon I felt myself drifting off to sleep, nestled against the warmth of my mother's body. I always did say that woman was a miracle-worker from another life. Just before I dozed off, however, my mom shifted slightly on the bed.

"I got something for you, honey. I picked it up from the store on the way home. You might like it."

I may be a moody, pubescent teenage girl, but I _love_ presents. On second thought, maybe it was _because_ I'm a hormonal female teen that I flew up right away with an eager smile and proffered my empty hands expectantly.

My mom just raised an eyebrow at me. "Weren't you feeling inconsolably depressed just a second ago, dear?"

Oh. Right.

"Anyway, here you go, Usa."

Have I mentioned how much I love my all-accepting mom?

She reached into a bag I hadn't seen her carry in and pulled out…

"A diary!" I snatched the black-covered book out of her very fingers, thumbing through its wonderfully blank pages before turning to my mom and adding belatedly, "Oops, Mom—uhhh…heh! Thanks for the diary!" I tossed in a winning smile and a hug in for good measure.

"You're welcome, dear."

Bull's eye! Now if I could just get her to leave before she got a chance to ask me about my—

"Sooo, Usa-chan, now that I see you're feeling better—how did that math test go today?"

ZOOM!

"Oops, gotta run, Mom—I mean, _you've_ got to run and I've got to stay here and cry my eyes out because that's what teenagers do best! Oh would you look at that, I feel the tears coming already!" And ushering my protesting mom out into the hallway with a dramatic sob, I slammed the door shut after her, shouting to the empty room, "Yes, I think I'll write all my _grief_ and _sorrow_ into this neat little, er, notebook!"

A moment's pause with my ear pressed to the door to make sure she was really gone, then…

"Yes!" I punched the diary into the air jubilantly, celebrating over my narrow escape. Okay, so I'd just delayed the volcano that was bound to erupt sooner or later, so to speak…but if that meant I was getting dinner tonight, hey, I wasn't one to complain!

When my euphoria finally died down (which admittedly took a while), I looked down once more at the notebook still clutched in my hands, turning it over to examine it more closely. Its fine, gold-embossed edges contrasted starkly with the black (and expensive-looking) leather covering, and my fingers unconsciously traced over the beautiful designs emblazoned on the front. Even as my fingertips made contact with the strange symbols, I felt an inexplicable energy surge from my hands down to the very tips of my toes, an unknown but familiar warmth surrounding my entire body and soul. Something lost, something precious…

Then the feeling faded away as quickly as it had come, leaving behind only a tingling sensation in my hands and, I swear (although it could have been a trick of the light) a slight glow in the golden symbols.

I stared at notebook for a moment…

And plunked it down on my desk with a heavy _thunk_.

"Eh! Must be the heat wave," I shrugged, shaking off the feeling and rummaging through my drawers for a pen before plopping down in my seat to write. "Might as well make good on my word to Mom!" I said to myself, rolling up my sleeves and stretching out my long-unexercised writing hand. "Now, what to write…"

Tapping my pencil again my lip, I tried to imagine what sort of things could possibly go into as lovely a notebook as this one. Love notes to Tuxedo Kamen? But I had tons of notebooks full of those already…A story about my favorite heroine and hero—you guessed it—Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Moon? But no…I had plenty of those, too…

Then, as if by called forth by some unbidden force, the face of the man who had been the source of unadulterated misery that afternoon floated once more across my mind. Chiba Mamoru! With a sudden sense of determination, I realized what had to be done, and this tool in my hands would be the deliverer of the task.

My hand skated across the paper, sweeping a big, bold heading all the way across the top of the first page, ink practically spattering my entire desk with the fervor I was writing in. Grinding my teeth, I muttered the words aloud as I wrote them… "Chiba…Mamoru…Reasons Why…I…Hate…Him…"

When I had finished what I proudly deemed the title page to a fine masterpiece in the making, I sat back proudly to admire my work. It read as follows:

**CHIBA MAMORU alias "Jerk Extraordinaire," "Devil of the Middle-World," "His Royal Weenie-ness," etcetera etcetera.**

**A Good, Justified List of Reasons As To Why I Hate Him**

**By Tsukino Usagi**

**Objective: To pore over, examine, and moon morbidly over the shortcomings of aforementioned subject, Chiba Mamoru, and determine how these fallacies reasonably contribute to his evident and unprecedented hate-ability levels. Also, in order to conduct research in as detailed and thorough a manner possible, to explore the presumed "attributes" and "likeability factors" of the subject, who will henceforth be named only as C.M. in order to preserve some semblance of sanity in researcher. In addition, to make a list of rules concerning conduct in the event that direct contact with the target is absolutely unavoidable. Finally, to delve into the possibilities that would stem from living in a utopian state of affairs where C.M. did not exist, and to name the wishes of scientist, Tsukino Usagi, for the subject, who unfortunately does exist and must be dealt with (wish-wise) accordingly.**

I set my pen down, satisfied and feeling justifiably exhausted from the exertion I had just been put through. Hearing my stomach rumbling, I was just about to head downstairs to sneak a triple-chocolate fudge brownie when I tossed one final glance at the diary. It was lying there open to the first page, the still-wet ink catching the light's reflection and twinkling innocently up at me. I couldn't resist; grabbing my pen once more, I scribbled near the bottom of the page, to be re-inscribed later when the ink dried:

**I wish that, just for one day, everyone in the world would hate ****Chiba Mamoru**** C.M. I wish that somebody would show him that love isn't always right around the corner, and that it can't be taken for granted like he takes it every day. I wish that, for once, nobody loved the stupid, arrogant, witty, intelligent, handsome C.M.**

Casting a last contemptuous look at the words on the paper, I shoved my pen back into its drawer and headed for the stairs, although I no longer felt hungry. With angry tears welling up in my eyes, I threw the door open and trudged downstairs, determined not to let the persistently stubborn man get the best of my appetite in my own home. Behind me, in my room, the notebook was left open to the last words I had written. I felt safe, at least, knowing that nobody else would ever lay eyes on it.

What I didn't know, of course, was that I wasn't the only one to read those fateful last words. And a very fateful wish it soon became.

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Whew! So what did you think? I hope the read was worth it! Most of that was just set-up for what's to come, but I hope you can bear with it. Let me know if you have any suggestions, ideas, criticism, or good old feedback in general!

Oh, and for any of you who have read _The Golden Compass_ (also known as _Northern Lights_, by Philip Pullman), I know they use the Alethia-o-meter, but I promise that the use of the same name wasn't in any way meant to infringe on the author's copyright.

A bit of shameless self-promotion—if you haven't already, check out my first "completed" fanfiction titled "Down the Rabbit Hole (And Back Again)" at Aria's Ink! It's going to be undergoing heavy revisions during the next few months, so now would be a really great time to hear all of your feedback and suggestions! Next installment coming up! Stay tuned!

Love, Ala


	2. Chapter 1

Hi guys!

It has been _ages_, I know. I have a viable excuse, I swear.

I just have to find it.

So while I'm off doing that, why don't you read this conveniently-placed story below?

And big doodled hearts to everyone who reviewed last chapter! –squee!- I love you guys, I really do.

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Notebooks, Not Love Notes

Ala Verity

**Chapter 1  
**

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The beautiful, glowing goddess seemed to float as she entered her bedchambers. Waving the door shut behind her with a flick of the wrist, she gave a soft sigh and set herself down gently at her silver vanity.

"I don't like how this is coming along."

Ah, so she wouldn't be alone tonight, after all.

In the mirror's reflection, Selene saw the figure of her best friend walking towards her and immediately busied herself with brushing her hair, which cascaded over her shoulders like a golden waterfall. She heard him sigh. "I don't like this, Selene, I really don't. A dozen things could have gone wrong by now, and—"

"And they haven't," she finished, now watching him from the corner of her eye. Then, quietly, almost to herself, "No. Things, as far as I know, have been more perfect than even I anticipated."

"And you anticipate everything, do you?" Thoth retorted angrily, his loud voice echoing in stark contrast to her soft one. "Look, Selene…" He rounded the bed and kneeled in front of his friend, who immediately immersed herself in her flawless nails. "Look—I _know_ it's hard being all alone up here for endless millenniums. But the fact is, you can't go interfering in the lives of innocent people who have nothing to do with our guardianship duties! And that's exactly what you're doing by sending that Spectacle down there."

"It's no big deal, what I'm doing," she replied, pursing her lips almost childishly. "It's not like I'm going to hurt anybody."

"I know you don't mean to, Selene, but sometimes…I mean, for instance, how are you monitoring these effects if you're not going down to Earth to do so? You're _not_ going down, are you? It's dangerous!"

"Of course not!" she exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips in the very image of being affronted, although her twinkling eyes betrayed her. "I've been living here for the past 2000 years as you have, Thoth, I'm not stupid, you know—"

"Did a good job fooling _me_," Thoth murmured, the playful upturn of his lips earning him a smack on the shoulder.

"It's this—" Selene opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like another disguised Alethian Spectacle; but upon closer examination, Thoth's keen eyes detected that the golden symbols adorning the cover were different. "It's a Receptacle—complimentary pair to go with the Spectacle. I've been using it to receive signals from our Earth-bound end," she said, tracing the edge of her mirror speculatively. "And _this_ is what I've seen so far."

It was as if an invisible stone had been dropped into a small pond. The mirror surface wavered for a brief moment, crystalline liquid. Then, slowly, a ripple from the center expanded outwards, a plethora of color expanding into the glassy blue until Thoth found himself looking at the image of a girl's diary.

"The Character Flaws of C.M.—" Thoth looked curiously from the mirror to Selene. "Who's C.M.? Not Chibi Moon…?"

"Chiba Mamoru, the high school senior she's got a vendetta against. But Thoth!" she added impatiently, waving her hand over the mirror's border and zooming in on a particular segment of text, "You're not reading it all—come on, you've got to read it carefully!"

"_Fine_!"

Several minutes of silence passed by as he read, Selene peering eagerly over his shoulder. Then…

"Selene, there's a blemish on your mirror."

"There's a WHA—oh, that's not a blemish, Thoth. I made a note of that passage especially."

Thoth raised an eyebrow at her. "But what in the moon's name did you mark th—" He froze mid-sentence, gaping as realization crossed his features. Then— "Oh, no."

"Yes."

He turned to her, looking mortified. "No, Selene, you can't—"

"Mhmm!" The corner of her eyes crinkled as she smiled and nodded happily, guileless. Perfectly guileless.

"Selene! You don't actually think she _means_ any of that, do you? How could you even think of granting an imbecile w—"

"Of _course_ I don't believe that, what do you think I am, stu—" Selene closed her eyes and waved her hands in front of her face, as if fanning away invisible smoke. "No, we've been through that already." She looked up again, her gold eyes flashing. "But the point is that that girl is obviously going through some serious problems, and we've got to help her! There are some things even the toughest girls can't solve on their own—"

"Like PMS and mood swings—" Thoth muttered.

"And _men_," Selene forged on, throwing him a dirty look, "happen to be one of them!"

Her friend did not miss the slight. "So what do you propose—theoretically speaking, that is—you—_fine!_—propose _we_ do? You're not actually thinking of—"

Selene brightened immediately. "Oh, that's the easy part! She's got it all written out for me."

"We're not fairies, we're moon sprites, Selene! She wants the world to hate a man. What are we going to do next, cleanse the world of the male population to make her happy?"

"Oh, she doesn't _hate_ him," the goddess replied with a knowing smile. "I'm going to make her wish come true—he'll learn never to take love for granted again…but with a few adjustments."

"And what are those?"

Selene turned to face him happily. "I'm going to do it by making _all_ of the world fall in love with him!"

Thoth blanched, gaping noiselessly at her before he choked out the next words.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

But Selene was no longer listening. Turning once more to face her mirror, she watched the diary's image ripple slightly under an invisible wind, and as the written wish flickered in and out of focus, she murmured, "Tsukino Usagi, your wish is my command."

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Ah…another beautiful, bright and sunny Wednesday morning.

Beautiful, that is, until the day started.

"WAGHHHH! Luna, why didn't you wake me UP?!"

"I'm not an alarm clock, you know," Luna muttered grumpily, watching as I shot out from under my cozy covers and pounced on the real clock. The red numbers flashed at me accusingly. 7:52 a.m.

I groaned as my cat stretched her paws with an ostentatious yawn. "You hit the 'snooze' button one too many times. I must have turned off."

"Ha ha. Not _funny_, Luna!"

Zooming around the room at top speed, I sent a lurid assortment of pink towels flying over my shoulder as I hunted for my school uniform with one hand and ran a brush brusquely through my hair with the other, chanting an endless refrain of "I'm late, I'm late, I'm LATE! Oh God, Luna, I'm late again!"

Luna regarded my morning antics lazily through one open eye. "You sound like the white rabbit from _Alice in Wonderland_."

I threw a pair of socks at her, which went whizzing instead out the open window. I heard the cat next door yowling as my weapon hit its mark. "Well now you know that I can't help being late all the time. Tardiness must be a bunny thing, so it's not my fau—AHA! Here it is!"

And successfully locating my uniform under a stack of comic books, I ignored Luna's "YEOWCH!" as the tower came toppling down on her, wrenched the rumpled garments on in five seconds flat, and sprinted for the door.

Just before I left, however, I couldn't resist poking my head back into the room and giving Luna a dirty look from where she was meowing furiously under my manga collection. "You know, I wish you _had_ an off button sometimes, Luna. And don't forget to clean up the mess when you're finished!" Then I bolted.

Exactly one minute later found me zipping past the arcade, wailing at a volume that alone would have disproved the Doppler effect. I was equally loud EVERYWHERE.

"Oh no! I'm going to get detention AGAAAAAIINN!" I sped up.

One of the days, I was going to break the record for the mile run.

I was too busy thinking about how I wasn't going to include Luna in my award acceptance speech to watch where I was going, which explained the chain of unfortunate events that followed.

"OOMPH!"

"OUCH!"

_Patterpatterpingboing THUNK!_ My textbooks rained down from the sky, bouncing every which way off the sidewalk.

"Ow…" I rubbed my head, wincing. "What—?"

"Hey, you okay?"

"Ye—" My jaw dropped as I looked up, and I immediately amended, "NO."

Because guess who the merciful heavens had decided to drop my way? Actually, don't answer that. I'd prefer not to think about it.

"Oy—look who it is! Odango!"

"If the heavens were truly merciful," I muttered under my breath, getting to my feet, "they would send down a lightning bolt and smite me right now. Or him," I added thoughtfully. "Actually, please make it him, and I swear I'll never ask for anything else!" Except maybe a house made of dark triple-chocolate mocha fudge.

"What are you going on about now, Odango? Trying to put a spell on me with your little witchcraft voodoo?"

Tilting my chin up defiantly at the voice above me, I gave the man standing in front of me as lethal a death glare as I could find it in me to muster up at this time of day. I swear that with any other mere mortal his head would already have burst into flames, but this was no normal human—no, this was Chiba Mamoru, the very last man I wanted to see at the ungodly hour of 8:05 a.m.

But I would have time later to mourn the premature death of a lovely Wednesday morning. Tsukino Usagi, the pitcher has thrown the ball—now hit that sucker all the way out of the stadium!

"Yes, as a matter of fact, that is _exactly_ what I'm doing." I cocked my head to one side. "Only my ugly-fying charm doesn't seem to work on you, because you're too ugly to begin with."

That was a home run if I ever saw one!

"By ugly, I'll assume you mean witty, talented, and charming, so thank you for the compliment." I stuck my tongue out at him in response and ducked under his arm to pick up my biology notebook. "Tell me, Odango," he drawled lazily, watching as I darted around, "do you always pick such handsome men for your victims?"

"Just you," I countered automatically without looking up, hunting for the eraser that had rolled happily to the other end of the sidewalk and disappeared out of sight. It wasn't until I actually felt his breath on my cheek that I realized how close he was standing to me.

"Odango."

I felt my body go shock-still as his arm brushed lightly against mine. I stopped breathing. The low rumble of his voice tickled my chin, and his breath resonated deeply in my ears—or was it the other way around?

Feeling slightly light-headed, I raised my head with painstaking slowness until the very bottom of his face came into view. I never knew until that very moment, suspended in groundless time, that I had a chin fetish. Or that I had a thing for perfect lips. Or even an affinity for noses. But then I chanced a quick peek up at the rest of his face and my heart stopped beating altogether.

Of course, I always knew way, way deep down inside that I had a thing for his eyes, even if I would rather die than admit it aloud. Those gorgeous, drown-in-me deep blue fathomless eyes of a god now twinkled down at me with shadowy amusement.

I licked my lips instinctively. Say something, Usagi! Say something intelligent! Now's your chance to prove him wrong after all these years!

"Er…Y…y-yeeeeees?!"

Great. I sounded like a dying hamster. So much for that opportunity.

Wait! Backtrack! What was I _thinking_? This was Chiba Mamoru we were talking about! The man who made my life miserable, who teased me every day like an overgrown schoolboy and was the source of my entire life's despair!

'Oh,' whispered a sly little voice in my head, 'But are you sure that that's not what _he_ wants?'

My eyes darted quickly from his demure eyes to his smooth lips, which were now no more than mere centimeters from my own.

"Odango…?" he whispered again. He brought his face so close to mine that I could have counted the number of eyelashes gracing his perfect eyes.

_But could it be that he…what if he really did…?_

"Wh-what?"

_No! This couldn't be! I couldn't possibly be attracted to this—this…_

"Is it just me, or did you just admit that I'm the best-looking man you've ever known?"

_—this king of all JERKS!_

"YOU!"

My hand shot out to hit him—and so, unfortunately, did my head. For the second time in two days, I felt my skull nearly crack open as it made full contact with Mamoru's forehead, and was sent reeling backwards in a spinning haze. The pressure on my arm instead of my rear end told me that something was keeping me on my feet, but I couldn't keep my vision straight for long enough to discern anything except a groan from somewhere above me.

"Ugh…you really do bring a new meaning to the phrase hard-headed, did you know that? I don't appreciate you trying to ruin my beautiful face by ramming it with your ugly one, thank you very much."

I glared up through the fireworks display blooming before my eyes at where I thought Mamoru's voice was issuing from, jerked my hand away from his surprisingly warm one, and spat, feeling queasy in a way completely and _totally_ unrelated to the aforementioned physical contact, "You don't need help making your face the way it is, Mamoru-baka."

Of course, that man has a way of twisting words that would make Twizzlers look pathetic.

"Oh, so you _do_ think I'm handsome. I didn't know you felt that way about me, Odango."

I could tell even through the twittering canaries orbiting around my head that he was grinning.

"That is _not_ what I meant!" I screeched, making a miraculous recovery from my near-fatal head injury and whapping him across the chest with my geometry textbook. "You take that back!"

"Ouch! I was wrong, Odango…you don't use your books for firewood—you use them as weapons!"

"You—take it _back_!"

"Violent little girl—OY! Watch where you're hitting!"

It took me a moment to realize that my weaponry—I mean textbooks—had been mere centimeters from making Mamoru impotent for life. _And_ I was about to feel bad for it…until I realized what he had called me.

_Whap!_ "WHO—" My bookbag went flying for the backlash. "—ARE YOU—" More blows. "—CALLING _VIOLENT?!_"

Who wanted more mini-Mamoru's running around in this world anyway?

"Ow! OW! Odango, stop it, you'll ruin my beautiful handsome face!"

"Like you need help ruining that…_pigsty_ of a thing!" I panted, delivering one last blow to the head with my battered bookbag before collapsing to the ground, completely spent.

Of course, the war never ends with the battle.

"'Pigsty?'" The amusement instantly returned to his voice, battle wounds forgotten in the face of some impending joke—at my expense, no doubt. "Been watching your kid brother's Phonics again, have you, Odango?"

I had to have committed murder—no scratch that, _genocide_ my last life to deserve this. But I hear that the charges for homicide are much more lenient…and really, did this lowlife even count as human?

"You see? You _see_? _This_ is why I never use developed vocabulary around you!"

"Because you don't have any?"

"NO! Because you're just—just—ARGH! Forget it!"

I think this moment deserves a pause to reflect upon. You see, I threw out a word—'pigsty'—a perfectly legitimate word that, coming from anybody else, would have been overlooked in an instant.

Instead, I get ridiculed for it. Stress levels rocket, self-confidence plummets. And then just like the bullied kid who stops speaking, I stop using my otherwise healthy arsenal of vocabulary. Are you seeing a pattern here?

Everybody assumes that, just because I find school boring and am not exactly the best student, I'm a complete flake. Well, it's partly true. I'm definitely not the brightest bulb in the box, or the most colorful crayon, or…or the squid with the most tentacles or anything. Heck, I can't even get all of my metaphors straight! But as to the assumption that my head is filled purely with pink fluff and thoughts of fuzzy little bunnies, it's neither accurate nor fair. Okay, I admit that there might be more fluffiness and fuzziness going on in my mind than other peoples', but really, is that all so bad?

Why, then, you ask, do I insist on continuing this little charade of outward airheaded-ness? Well, for one thing, not all of it's an act. Sometimes I say things that just seem to come out wrong, because I tend to use my mouth before I use my head. But the other part of it is about expectations. When people see you in a certain way, the image starts to become a part of you, whether you know it or not.

The devil in front of me, for instance, seems to do an exceptionally good job bringing out the "best" in me. Rei comes in a close second, hence the increase in scatterbrain levels in both their presences.

Of course, I can't seem to think straight when staring into a certain pair of blue eyes as it is…

Like right now.

Gazing into those fathomless blue depths, I wondered if Mamoru had always kept his face so close to mine whenever we met and I had just been too busy thinking of the next comeback to notice. Well, I noticed now, all right—and boy, did I ever! Oh God, why couldn't I take my eyes off of him? Say something, Usagi! He's a creep, remember? A creep! A creep who sticks magnets into his eyes, thus rendering it physically impossible to break eye contact with those gorgeous eyes—

"What's the matter, little girl?" he whispered, lips quirked slightly at the corners. "Cat got your tongue?"

I tried very hard not to imagine what would happen if I said that, in fact, there was much more that I wanted to go on with my tongue at the moment, and it didn't involve ca—cats…

CATS! Oh my GOD_,_ was that Luna coming down the street?!

"Shi—I mean, shoot!" What the hell was she doing _here_?!

Ignoring Mamoru's bemused glance, I jammed the last notebook back into my bag and scanned the premises frantically for a hiding spot. The arcade was too far away, and the spot behind the trash can was already occupied by a wayside bum trying to shave his chin with a rusty spatula. Slowly, I allowed my eyes to rove back up to the quirked eyebrows of my dreaded final option. Maybe if I just hid behind him (making sure not to bump into him in any way, shape, or form), she wouldn't be able to spot me, and we could just pretend—

"Meow…MROW!"

—pretend I was going to live to see another sunrise.

I turned around very slowly, the image of a claw-bloodied face floating ominously across my mind. "Er…yes, Luna?"

"Meow!"

"Oh…hey there, kitty," Mamoru said, looking down at the black cat sitting at his feet. Great, if it wasn't enough humiliation for one morning, now I was going to get a telling-off in front of my archenemy, from my own _cat_ no less! And they think that fighting is the hardest part of this whole defender-of-the-world thing…ha!

"Meeeeeow!"

Wait…Epiphany! That's right! _Cats can't talk!_

I could practically see a miniature-sized Beelzebub climbing up onto that cozy spot on my shoulder. Praise to whoever decided that felines should be the subordinate, speechless life form on Earth!

Cue evil laughter and dramatic burst of flames.

This meant, of course, that I could have all the fun with my precious little feline I wanted, _and_ not have to pay for it for another eight hours…Ahh, bless her furry worrywart heart.

"Ohhh, Luna!" I cooed, shimmying out from behind Mamoru with a jaunty sway of the hips. "What are you doing so far from home, baby?" I grinned down at her with as much defiance I could put behind my teeth. She _hates_ it when I call her pet names.

"Is it yours?" Mamoru asked, bending down to scratch Luna's ears. She purred and nuzzled up against his pant leg.

"Yup, that's my cat—isn't that right, Luna-pie?"

"Poor thing." I raised my eyebrows at him, and whispered in her ear, "So…does Odango abuse you too?"

"Hey!"

Luna gave another low purr of contentment and lifted her chin up invitingly to his hand. Mamoru chuckled and obliged, staring almost mockingly up at me with these twinkling blue eyes, as if he knew—

Wait—she did _what_?!

"Luna!" I hissed, feeling more than a little betrayed. This was my stuck-up, too-proud-to-even-put-on-her-cute-face-for-dinner-scraps guardian we were talking about! And here she was, consorting with the enemy! Don't even get me started on how I _hate_ being ignored, especially when it's someone's _job_ to pay attention to me…And did mine ears deceive me, or did that mew sound suspiciously like a…_moan_?

"Okay, this isn't funny anymore, Luna," I said firmly (I decided quickly—and wisely, in my opinion—that mine ears had indeed deceived me). "We're going home!"

"What are you getting so riled up about, Odango?" Mamoru asked, looking up as he scratched a particularly sensitive spot between Luna's ears. She purred with delight, and he grinned. "Jealous that your cat's paying more attention to me than you?"

Hell yes!

"NO—I mean, no! I'm just—she's not supposed to talk to, I mean, _interact_ with strangers!" I amended hastily, before adding venomously, "And stop doing that to my cat!"

"Doing what?"

"Th-that!" I exclaimed, pointing accusingly at his hand. He lifted the offending extremity innocently, and Luna, noticing the absence of her special treatment, looked up at Mamoru and mewed in protest.

"Ah, sorry, kitty," Mamoru said, ruffling her fur with more affection than I had seen him display towards me in all the months I had known him. "Your owner's jealous that I only like pretty gals like you."

Either Luna was blushing (which I did _not_ want to think about—and why were these disturbing thoughts suddenly flooding my mind anyway?), or I was seeing red. It was probably the latter.

"Baka, you—What are _you_ staring at?"

He raised an eyebrow up at me from his spot on the ground. "I'm not staring at anything, Odango—and anyway, there isn't much of a view from down here, if you know what I mean—"

"Not you—_her_!"

Mamoru turned his gaze to follow my finger, which was pointed accusingly at a point just over his shoulder. Hovering behind him was a girl who, by the looks of her more sophisticated blue and white uniform, attended the local university. Of course, clothing and manners are two completely different things. She was gawking so badly at him that any passerby would have thought that Mamoru had just transformed into the Incredible Hulk before her very eyes.

"Well?" I demanded, looking between the two of them, as if by doing so their relationship would magically write itself in the air. By the looks of Mamoru's blank stare, however, it seemed as though he had no more idea of who she was than I did. "What do you want? Hello? I'm talking to you!"

The girl gave a little squeak of surprise and flinched, her head whipping around to face me. I saw that her eyes were bulging like a hamster that had been squeezed too hard.

"What are _you_ doing with _him_?"

"I—excuse me?" I looked around at Mamoru with an incredulous snort, and he shrugged. Luna meowed pitifully. We ignored her. "Who's doing what with _who_?"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," she snapped, before casting a quick look in Mamoru's direction and blushing. "Th-that is, _who_ I'm talking about."

"Who? My cat? She's a girl."

"Chi—Don't make me say it!"

"Say what?" Mamoru asked curiously.

"Yeah, say _what_?" I repeated, adding dumbly, "You don't mean the devil here, do you?"

"Hey!"

I shrugged. "Hey, she asked."

"_Don't call him that!_"

I turned to face the girl again, feeling a little annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of what could have been a good argument. "Don't call him what? The devil? That's only because he i—"

_WHAM!_

"OW! What the—"

I felt as if I had run headlong into a wall yet again—a wall that had come charging just as quickly in my direction. I looked up, head spinning. The girl was clutching her bookbag tightly in both hands, ready for another swing at my head.

"I warned you! I told you not to call him that!"

"And what EXACTLY does it matter to you what I call this freakish jerky king of all creeps—_whoa!_" I jumped back before the whizzing bag could deprive me of an ear and shouted, "What is your _problem_?"

"Don't bother Upperclassman Chiba with your inane antics, little girl!"

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Did she just throw SAT vocab at me, AND call me a little girl in one sentence? Excuse _me_, sister, but nobody but Chiba Mamoru calls me that and gets away with it unscathed! And even he's got the teeth marks to show for it!

"Looks like _somebody_ has a fan club, huh, Mamoru-baka?" I growled, rolling up my sleeves. "You don't need a nose to fan-girl, do you? Because I'm going to knock that sucker straight up y—"

"Whoa—hold your horses, Odango!" said Mamoru, who up until now had been watching with a commendable degree of disinterestedness, considering that the near-brawl had erupted over _him_ of all people. He straightened up and stepped between us, and I noticed as he did so that he stood much closer to me than he did to the new arrival. Almost as if he were protecting me.

"First off, let me get one thing straight—" Mamoru began, looking firmly at the girl in front of us. She looked suddenly abashed, as if standing face-to-face with her treasured upperclassman hadn't been part of the agenda. It made me wonder how she could adore a person without having ever met him, and what kind of a shallow person she was, but then my mind wandered to Tuxedo Mask and my question was immediately answered.

"You are absolutely right about Odango and her inane antics."

Of course, the man always has to open his big mouth and ruin the moment.

"_Excuse me?_" I screeched, raining fists of fury down on his back as the girl gave an adoring nod of approval. She looked like a bobble-head doll. A really, really ugly bobble-head.

Mamoru held up a hand for silence, and I hit that too. "That being said, I think it—ow! deserves to be mentioned that what she and I do is really none of your concern. Although I'm reconsidering that she deserves _anything_ at this point," he added grumpily, casting a baleful eye down at me.

I looked back up at him, blinking. My fists continued to pound on his back, although more out of habit than actual intend to inflict damage now. "You think what we do deserves to be kept quiet?" I asked in a small, awe-filled voice.

"I _thought_ it deserved it."

"What…a…_pervert_! AIEEE!" Fists came down like hail in a thunderstorm. "You want to lure me into a secret trap that nobody knows about and…and do things to me! Eek! Get away!"

"H-hey, hang on a sec! What are you—what do you—ow, quit it, Odango, do you want to kill me?!"

I would leave that question open for interpretation.

"I'm DOOOOOMED," I wailed, ten decibels higher than even any supersonic bat can stand. "O lonely world, don't forget meeeeee!" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girl inching away warily, hands clamped tightly over her ears as if she was trying to pry them off, and her looking torn between staying next to her beloved and keeping her hearing. Evidently natural instinct for survival won out, because she finally bolted, a familiar black figure right on her heels.

"NOOOOOO—SAAAAVE MEEEEEE—!" I screeched after her retreating figure.

My last "DOOM," however, died an instant death the moment the pair rounded the corner, a self-satisfied smile crossing my lips.

"Works every time," I said smugly, dusting off my hands and yelling after the long-gone pair, "I hope your ears bleed!" I chuckled.

"_What_?" Mamoru shouted. He cupped his hands around his ears like a pair of hearing trumpets. "I couldn't—hear—you…I think—I've—gone—_deaf_—!"

"Har har. Very funny."

"No, I mean it! I think I might have—and is it just the ringing in my ears, or do I hear bells? Do you hear them, Odango?"

I paused to listen, watching in silence as Mamoru tilted his head to one side and shook it vigorously, as if trying to empty his ears of water. And in the distance, I could make out the faintest sound of school bells tolling their morning ritual, proclaiming to all the world that I, Tsukino Usagi…was _late_!

My eyes went impossibly wide.

"You JERK! Haruna-sensei's warned me that if I'm late again, she's going to KILL me!" My bookbag clung onto my shoulder for dear life as I turned on my heel and sped away, screaming as the school bells clanged away happily in the distance, "It wasn't my FAULT! _The devil made me do it!!!_"

Mamoru's unrepentant chuckles behind me mingled with the bells of doom like some crack-headed harmony of music, and the whole run there the remembrance of his cocky grin burned like fire in my mind.

'Item No. 137 to the C.M. Hatred Handbook,' I thought furiously as I squeezed through the schoolyard gate, "He grins like the Cheshire cat, which means he's insane.'

I never wrote it, but his teeth were perfectly straight and white like the Cheshire cat's too: the perfect, charming smile. And I'd bet my ice cream money on it that he had never even set foot in an orthodontist's office.

Good. All the more reason to hate him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey, Mina-chan," I whispered as I slid into my seat. Luckily for me, Haruna-sensei's meeting this morning had run late, allowing me to slip safely into the classroom without suffering her wrath. "You won't believe the morning I've had!"

I jammed the now-cold toast I had grabbed on my way out the door into my mouth and looked over at Minako expectantly. She had her chin propped up thoughtfully on one hand, watching me.

"Er…this is about the time when you, being the wonderful and caring friend that you are, ask me exactly what happened to make my morning living heck," I prompted helpfully after a short silence.

Minako only gave a wistful sigh in response and turned instead to gaze out the window. "What is it?" she finally asked in a subdued tone.

I raised an eyebrow at the back of her golden head. Aino Minako was one of my best friends, a chipper sort of gal, and she had a sweet tooth for gossip big enough to rival my fetish for yummy desserts. Something was the matter, something that I conceded might even _possibly_ trump meeting the devil on the way to school. "Okay, Minako-chan, spill! What's up?"

Sigh. "Nothing."

I tapped my pencil against my lip impatiently, torn between finding out what had Minako looking like her kitty had just died and spilling my own guts on the tirade that was threatening to boil over inside of me. I made a quick mental compromise.

"Artemis _isn't_ dead, _is_ he?"

"No."

"Oh."

Okay. At least now I could vent without feeling guilty.

"You won't _believe_ who I ran into today!" I paused, waiting for the appropriate 'who?'—but it never came. I forged on anyway. "That conniving, selfish, egotistical jerk of all jerks, Chiba Mamoru!"

Minako's head swiveled so fast in my direction that her flying blonde tresses whapped me smartly in the face. "Mamoru?"

"Ouch! Yeah, Mamoru the devil…er, why?"

"Oh, nothing." And Minako turned around again, letting out such a heart-wrenching sigh that I couldn't help asking again, "Are you _sure_ Artemis isn't dead?"

My interrogation was cut short, however, by the clicking of heels on the hallway tiles that announced the approach of a woman whose wrath was second only to Queen Beryl's herself—Haruna-sensei.

"Hello class!" she chirped, tossing her briefcase—which I am _convinced_ holds all of her spare whips and chains—onto the floor next to her desk. The bag gave an ominous jangle as it hit the floor.

Haruna-sensei redefines the meaning of the word "PMS." She can go from hot to cold faster than you can blurt out, "The answer is the positive or negative square root of 365 _i_!" And trust me, Ami can spew out answers pretty darn fast when she wants to. I don't know what cruel twist of fate decided that the year I graduated from middle school would be the year Haruna-sensei was promoted to Juuban High School, but whoever managed that little feat has a pretty damn sadistic sense of humor.

"So today," Haruna-sensei began, perching on the edge of her desk like some over-precocious owl, "is the beginning of another _won_derful day with all of my lovely, bright-eyed students! And what better way to start the beautiful morning off than with a writing assignment?"

Those of us who weren't already asleep groaned. I, feeling surprisingly refreshed from the morning's spar with Mamoru, was one of them.

Haruna-sensei held up a hand for silence. "You will have one day to complete this writing project, but in the meantime I will not assign any other homework tonight."

"Oh no," whispered a disappointed voice from the other side of the room. Everybody turned in their seats to stare at the girl, but I didn't have to look to see who could possibly feel let down by the loss of a night's homework.

Mizuno Ami, the genius of our class, happens to be one of my closest friends. She also just so happens to have the highest IQ of any fifteen-year old in the country. I think she's read every book in the world; one time I swear I even saw her nose buried in a copy of _Hogwarts, A History_, never mind how she managed to get her hands on it in the first place, and we all know how many people in the world have read _that_ hulk of a thing. I've heard that if her brain keeps expanding at the rate that it is, it'll explode within five years. I hope it isn't true, otherwise my homework will never get done!

"But that means that the projects we have been working on for the past week will have to be postponed, doesn't it, Haruna-sensei?" she asked presently, her hand raised high in the air.

There were some cheers from the rest of us. A rogue paper airplane whizzed past me and hit Umino in the back of the head.

"Yes, Ami, it does."

"But I've already finished the entire textbook in advance, _and_ reviewed the lessons for the next three weeks!" she complained, but very politely. I could see her repressing the complete extent of her woes for lunchtime, and made a mental note to eat in the library where she would never think to look for me. I loved Ami to death, but I was going to have to avoid her if I wanted to keep my ears from getting bored off of the sides of my head. "Does this mean that we will be forfeiting the agenda scheduled for the last day of class, Haruna-sensei? Because I've already done the work for that day, too—"

Those of us who were still awake (we were approaching one-third of the class now) groaned again. Typical Ami nonsense.

"Let me assure you that this assignment will serve as ample opportunity to put you on your life's path to a better and more successful future," Haruna-sensei said with a small smile, before turning and casting a baleful glare in my direction. I stopped chewing the toast I was still working on long enough to strive for an innocent look. "Although _many_ of you would do well to learn from her example."

Ami flushed red with pleasure. I think her brains constitute half of the reason why Haruna-sensei seated us on opposite ends of the room; she probably thinks my bad grades are contagious or something. Good thing it doesn't make me feel like I've been contaminated with the bubonic plague or something equally hideous.

"Yes, Haruna-sensei," Ami murmured when she found her voice again. "But can we still make the assignments due tomor—mmph!" A hand clapped over her mouth.

"Ha! What a little _joker_ you are, Ami-chan!"

I grinned. Makoto to the rescue, as always.

Kino Makoto transferred a year ago from another district. She's more brawn than brains, and she's definitely the strongest one of the group, but don't take her tough looks at face value; after all, she _is_ the one sitting next to Ami. She was the fourth addition to our little group—Hino Rei, whom I already mentioned as being a pyromaniac being the final one, but she goes to another high school—and I've found that Makoto actually prefers donning an apron to sweaty gym clothes. And of course, the food she makes is like heaven melting on your taste buds.

"Ew, quit drooling, Usagi!" someone behind me hissed.

Oops.

Haruna-sensei looked over at the bunch of us and harrumphed. "As I was _saying_…you would do well to learn from the examples that others set for you. While we're on the subject, I expect a five-page report by tomorrow on the person who most inspires you, or who you think makes a good role model and the reasons why. You may include examples of what they have inspired you to do or made you realize about your own future goals. It is due at the beginning of the period first thing tomorrow."

A hand shot up in the air. "Can we gather examples from people we don't know personally, but whom we admire anyway?"

She nodded. "Yes. That's a very good point. People you admire do not necessarily have to be people you know personally."

"Does it have to be limited to five pages, or can we write more?"

I started to roll my eyes, but I was barely accompanying it with an exasperated sigh when my mind registered something strange.

Ami didn't have a guy's voice!

"Well…it can be more," Haruna-sensei was saying, to my slack-jawed amazement. "I can understand if you have a lot to say about the person you admire—let me be the first to admit that love is a many, many-splendored thing…" A dreamy, faraway look misted over her eyes, and I wondered which guy had the unpleasant honor _this_ time of being the object of our unflattering teacher's desires.

"I agree," said the boy who had spoken, and to my surprise, a chorus of murmurs and nods joined his firm declaration of love, or whatever it was that would drive a guy to _want_ to write more than the suggested amount. She had better be one hot babe.

"So…" Haruna-sensei said, pulling herself out of a reverie that had made her look more docile than a wide-eyed doe. "Since you brought it up, now would be a nice time to share. What sort of a person is this role model that you are going to be writing about?"

We all turned in avid anticipation. My mouth was still hanging wide open, but everybody was too busy watching the sideshow to care, except Minako, who was soundly asleep beside me.

"Well—" the boy began. "He's older, an upperclassman—"

I choked. "He?" I exclaimed, looking incredulously at my classmate. He threw me a dirty look. "Wait—so you're saying this person you're supposedly in love with…is a _guy_?"

There were more murmurs, but this time I noted a slightly more hostile undertone to them than before. The boy turned slowly in his chair to face me.

"_Don't…call him that_!" he snarled.

Now where had I heard those words before? I couldn't quite place it, but they definitely had a familiar ring to them. I tried to remember, but the he was glaring so fiercely at me that I finally gave up and asked instead, "Call him what?"

"That! 'Guy!'" The boy scoffed in disgust. "As if he was some common…some lowlife, normal man!"

I snorted. "Now he's a man, is he? So what, did your guy just get a growth spurt, or is he going through puber—"

"I told you _not_ to call him that, you little—"

"Alright, alright class, settle down! That's enough!"

I stuck my tongue out at the boy, who looked like he wanted to strangle me but didn't want to get my guts all over his cleanly pressed shirt in the process. Come to think of it, his uniform was so unusually tidy that it could have rivaled even neat-freak Mamoru-baka's; even his jacket, slung casually over one shoulder, made him look like an exact copy of the man himself.

Add Number 138 to the list: C.M. is officially classified as a disembodied spirit capable of practicing black wizardry; he makes possessing high school students and forcing them to dress like him his favorite past-time.

I could hear Haruna-sensei in the background, asking another student who their role model was. Nobody was paying attention to me anymore; I cast a furtive glance around the classroom and slipped a hand into my backpack, intent on eating my lunch and forgetting about the strange episode altogether. After all, it had been nearly ten minutes since I had finished off my toast, and I hadn't even had the chance to wash it down properly with some noodles and chicken.

As I rummaged through my pack, however, my hand collided with something searing hot. I pulled my hand out quickly, figuring I had burnt it against an unusually hot lunch—but then I realized with a sinking feeling (and a miserable growl from my stomach) that I had left my lunch at home yet again.

So what could it be?

I reached a cautious hand back into my backpack, feeling slowly around the edges until the radiating heat simmered pleasantly against my skin. The moment my finger made contact with the object's surface, however, the heat disappeared; it was the cool cover of a notebook.

"You again?" I murmured, pulling the black book out and placing it on my desk. The golden symbols twinkled happily up at me. I looked down at my watch, which read 8:17. There were 43 minutes of class left to kill before I was officially one-sixths through with my school day, and that was only if I managed to squeeze through without getting detention. I raised an eyebrow down at the leather-bound covering. "Alright, if you insist…"

And the words came to me. They flowed faster than liquid onto the paper, faster than my hand could write, as if some invisible force was drawing the expressions from the depths of my mind. After fifteen minutes, the list of things that I could not stand about Chiba Mamoru had expanded to 152; after half an hour, I had filled twenty pages and moved on to possible scenarios explaining his much-resented popularity, among which included hiring brainwashing agents from an underground intelligence agency run by three-foot tall mole rats. By the time the class period was about to end, I had just concluded what had been a mock letter to Mamoru listing all the reasons he made my life living hell. I was just shutting the notebook with a satisfied sigh for a productive day when a shadow loomed over my desk.

Looming shadows are never a good thing. They either mean that a youma is about pop out of some nearby bushes to attack you, or that somebody is about to make some incredibly ironic remark that will land you in deep doo-doo. In this case, I vouch for option two playing out.

"Why is it that the only time you'll ever be induced to write is when it involves not paying attention during class, Usagi?"

Bingo. I looked up very slowly from the open page to see Haruna-sensei hovering at the edge of my desk, her hands poised in the characteristic hands-on-hips gesture.

"I'm…starting on my assignment?" I laughed weakly.

"Let me see it."

"NO!" Haruna-sensei raised an eyebrow at my outburst. "W-wait—what I meant was, 'no,' I can't let you see it and deeply apologize for it because…because I haven't finished the assignment yet! Yes, that's it! And I don't want anybody to read it until I'm done."

I crossed my fingers underneath my desk and prayed fervently that all the times I had spent lying about to Luna about what I had been doing instead of studying had paid off.

"Lying will cost you one detention, Usagi. You know the drill."

Of course, none of my lies had actually ever worked with Luna, so I didn't see any reason why the almighty gods of fate should let it start working now.

"Hand it over, unless you want to make it two. I have plenty of time to spare, you know."

I knew better than not to believe her. I didn't move. Haruna-sensei reached for my notebook and I squeezed my eyes tight shut, willing the book to spontaneously combust in her very hands.

"Let's see…a letter, hmm? Ah, very interesting…"

I chanced a glance up at her through slitted eyes. Haruna-sensei was thumbing through the last pages of the notebook, reading the letter I had written. Her eyes glinted menacingly as she looked up at me, her fingers still working their way automatically to the salutation page. She always out to do me in, that woman, and now she was going to use this to make fun of me until the end of time.

Her next words, however, were worse than a lifetime's worth of jokes and caught me completely off guard.

"So…writing love letters, are we, Usagi?"

"WHAT?"

My mouth opened and closed noiselessly, and I watched in growing horror as Haruna-sensei's misinterpretation turned into confidence at my reaction. Evidently, she felt that such a strong response necessarily meant that she was right, which was as far from the truth as it could get. As if I would ever write a _love letter_ to that awful, hideous, cruel, evil—

"And who," she was saying with the wickedest smile I had ever seen (with the exception of Mamoru himself), "is the lucky recipient, I wonder?"

Unfortunately, I knew what the misguided answer to that question was going to be. And I wasn't about to let it come out, either.

"Oh, this is going to be good, I can feel it…!"

A diary, a collection of primary sources, my memoirs—let it be anything, _anything_ but what she took it to be!

"I-It's just a notebook, not a love letter!" I finally blurted in one final stand of desperation, but she didn't seem to hear me as her eyes landed on the open page. I watched as the blood drained out of her face faster than if a needle had drawn it out. She gaped at the words written in the notebook and looked from me to it, and back at me.

"Ch…You…Chi…Chib—"

RIIIIIIING!

"_That's the bell!_" I roared, snatching the notebook out of her hands and wheeling around with the evidence clutched tightly in my hand like a weapon.

"_Wait! You!_ Tsukino Usagi, you come back right now—"

I could feel the blood pounding in my ears, drowning out her shouts. I pushed past two of my classmates standing by the front rows of desks and bolted for the open door.

"—and tell me what exactly you business you have writing love letters to _Chiba Mamoru_!"

A flurry of exclamations filled the room as students craned their necks to get a better view of me as I ran, and one of the girls in my class squealed, "Did she just say 'Chiba _Mamoru_?'".

But I was already out the door and sprinting as fast as my legs could carry me in the other direction. I ran until the sound of my classmates' shouts behind me gradually faded into the hum of passing period, until finally the last voice died away, echoing the very name that had been inscribed innumerable times into the notebook grasped in my hand.

'What's wrong with me?' I thought as I raced through the busy corridors, weaving automatically in and out of crowds of people shooting curious glances at me. I ignored them and willed my feet to go faster, to take me away from this place. 'Why am I so mad that Haruna-sensei thought I was writing love letters to Chiba Mamoru? And why was everyone making such a big deal about it? Is it so impossible to believe that he would ever feel…It's not even like I…it's not like I would ever…'

"Hey! Watch where you're going!"

I pushed open the front doors of the school and burst outside into the streaming sunlight descending from the bright morning sky, fighting back the tears threatening to spill over.

"It's not like I would ever actually like him!" I shouted to the empty schoolyard, ready to defy anyone who would contradict me. Nobody did. I dragged my suddenly heavy bookbag into the shade of a tree at the edge of the yard and sagged down next to it, hugging the leather-bound book tightly against my chest. "It's not like I would actually…ever like him…" I whispered again to the notebook's spine.

The school bell clanged away, signaling the start of second period.

So if this was what it felt like to hate him, why in the world couldn't I stop thinking about him?

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So! What did you guys think?

And while you were all (happily, I'm sure) reading away, I thought of a few potential explanations as to why this chapter took so long to get out, and possible explications as to why more writing should be happening in the near future:

*It has been a crazy emotional ride on this past two month's rollercoaster. Life, as always, has its share of ups and downs, and I'm sure you'll all be understanding if I say that the Ferris wheel was under maintenance, with me stuck at the top with only my metaphorical vertigo to keep me company. And let's say I needed to use the bathroom, too. In other words, it was pretty miserable for a while back there.

*An onslaught of work and deadlines. Not an excuse, since it's never hindered me before, but it didn't help much. What we need is a week off every month to write. Does anybody want to sign an international petition for it?

*Finals—brings new meaning to the word stuDYING. Enough said, I think

*Sickness—Yup. After five months, I am _still_ not better. In fact, I'm doing worse than those in-between 3 months of relative peace with the germs. What with the lack of sleep going into these final days of studying, and the strain that came before it with interviews, end-of-the-year activities, and auditions, my body hasn't been able to take it very well. :( But hopefully the end of this term won't finish with me crashing and burning! Because I'm going on vacation in one week! Lalala~!

That being said…

*Summer is officially here in one week! This means, after I return from my vacation time in the tropics, that I will have time to write leisurely again and hopefully, recover.

*And if I get more time to rest, the quicker I'll get better, right? And clear minds write better!


	3. Chapter 2

Yes, I admit that I squealed at the screen when I posted this. Actually, I squealed after I wrote that I had squealed, but hey--an update's an update, right?

Oh, promises, promises.

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**Notebooks, Not Love Notes**

**Ala Verity**

**Chapter 2**

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I love Ami to death—quite literally—but boy, can she try the patience of a saint!

"—and I would otherwise be quite glad to tell you all who my own personal role model happens to be, of course," she was saying, wearing that smug Hallway-Patrol-Monitor look on her face that made me want to stab something with a blunt object, "if it were not for the fact that Haruna-sensei explicitly asked us not to reveal the name of our mentor to others at the end of class—_which_, by the way, Usagi-chan, it was not very proper for you to miss at _all_, because—"

"—because academic events of the most crucial nature occur at the period between the ringing of the bells signifying the end of one class session and the commencement of another." I groaned. "Do you ever feel the compelling need to breathe when you start doing that, Ami-chan, or do Goddesses of Water all have gills?"

"Doing what? Am I doing something?" She looked around at us, her eyes widening in comprehension. "Oh my God, am I being an aberration from the status quo _again_?"

Yes, I most definitely should have eaten in the library today.

"No! No, Ami, now will you please stop dancing around like that? You look like you're going to give yourself a hernia."

Minako grinned. "Kind of like you do whenever Mamoru calls you the Odango-Headed Harbinger from Hell?"

I didn't know where she had learned alliteration from (probably her new—and extremely cute—American tutor), but she was going to pay for it. And I would deal in _spades_.

"Hey, what are you—Usagi, _don't you da—EEEK_!"

"What about you, Usagi-chan?" Makoto asked, ignoring the muffled shrieks now issuing from behind the newspaper I had sent to attack Minako, with a little help from my crystal (we all cheated a little bit when Luna wasn't around). "Have you decided who you want to write about yet?"

"Hmm? Oh…no, not quite. I mean, really," I added, eyeing Makoto's bento box hopefully, "How can a girl be expected to think on an empty stomach?"

As if on cue, my stomach growled unpleasantly, seconding the idea that Makoto share her generous portion of squid rolls with us. If she got the hint, though, she didn't show it.

"That's absolutely right, Usagi-chan. You know, I've been thinking…well, on my nice and full stomach, of course—"

I love Makoto, but if she wasn't such a darn good boxer, I'd probably sock her.

"—that no person, man or woman, should ever have to think on an empty stomach. Especially…" She sighed, and I smelled the heavenly aroma of fried shrimp on her breath. "Especially if they're already a genius."

"Well, geez, Makoto-chan—I didn't know you felt that way about Ami," I snapped irritably. Stupid squid-scented sadists.

But my ribbing was already lost on Makoto, who had mentally departed for that place known to all of us as MOB—My Old Boyfriend territory.

"Makoto? Hellooo! Jupiter to Makoto!"

I watched in horror as a drop of squid sauce trickled out of her half-open mouth and landed—_splat!_—right on top of a squid ball.

"Eww, Makoto, that's disgusting!" Ami squealed, thrusting a pile of napkins at her.

In the midst of the chaos, I whipped out a pair of chopsticks and rolled up my sleeves in anticipation. She wouldn't miss one little, tiny, itsy-bitsy—

"What do you think you're doing with my crab cakes, Usagi?"

"Huh?" I looked up. "Oh damn," I whispered. "Busted." And I meant that literally.

I suddenly found myself staring, not at a delectable crab cake, but right at the generously-endowed bust of none other than the cook herself. I flew backwards faster than you could say "death by starvation."

"Er…testing their temperature?" I giggled nervously. My voice cracked mid-giggle.

"Usagi-chan…" Makoto growled.

"Eeps…yes?"

"Do you know what this lunch is?"

I couldn't resist. "…Really, really tasty-looking food?"

"Exactly. And do you know who it's for?"

A spark of hope flared up inside of me. My savior! "Me?" I asked hopefully, wiping away the spittle forming at the edge of my lips.

"Wrong." She might as well have screamed, "Die, hope, die!" and stabbed me through the heart with a butcher knife.

"It's for a very special person," she continued, and I contrived to look hurt. After all, wasn't I, Sailor Moon, champion of justice and extraordinary benefactress of all who are lonely and desperate in a world of darkness, at the very least the epitome of all that was special?

"It's for _him_."

I threw all hurt aside and forgave her instantly.

"Mako-chan, your attention is all mine. Where's the hottie alert?"

She gave another sigh, the millionth I had heard that day, I swear. "He's not…with us anymore."

Eagerness turned to soberness. "Oh. I'm so sorry, Makoto…I didn't know you had a thing for dead guys."

"He goes to another high school."

"Oh." Silence. Then… "_Oh._" Well, at least _that_ made more sense. More than a sudden predilection towards necrophilia, anyway.

"Speaking of other high schools," Minako cut in at that moment, having successfully beaten the murderous newspaper to the ground with a protractor—the only time I had ever seen her use it— "What happened during English class todafy?"

Four expressions wearing varying degrees of incredulity turned in the blonde's direction. Only about thirty percent of Minako's questions actually ever make sense in the context she puts them in.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Ami asked, shaking her head sadly at the table. I patted her consolingly on the shoulder. The loss of reason always affected her more than the rest of us.

Minako shrugged, snatching a squid roll when Makoto wasn't looking and popping it into her mouth. "I don't know. That's what I'm asking Usagi-chan. Usagi-chan?"

Four pairs of eyes swiveled on me, and my stomach gave an unpleasant jolt. "Why does Minako get to eat Makoto's food?" I grumbled, pretending to look disgruntled. I didn't have to work very hard to achieve the desired effect.

"Don't change the subject," Minako replied through a mouthful of squid.

"I dunno. I'm just tired, I guess," I finally mumbled, laying my head down on my arms so that I was staring at the artwork etched into the crumbling wooden table, instead of at their accusing stares. "I just needed a break, that's all."

"A dramatic episode, more like," Ami commented.

"Yeah, well," I began, exhaling noisily into my sleeve, "Sorry we can't all be perfect like…like…oh, my God."

"Your God?" Minako frowned at me. "Your God is perfect?"

"Oh, he's a god, all right," Makoto sighed, lost in her own little universe.

"Usagi-chan?" Ami asked, frowning. "Usagi-chan, what's wrong?"

"N-nothing," I said, standing up so hastily that I almost knocked over my chair.

"What is it, Usagi-chan?"

"It's nothing. I've got to go," I repeated, fumbling with the strap of my bag as I swung it haphazardly over my shoulder. I saw Ami cringe out of the way as it whizzed past her left ear and came dangerously close to making her the next Van Gogh.

"Go where?" Makoto asked, flipping the squid rolls idly with her chopsticks. Over, and over, and over…

"Classroom—detention, I forgot," I mumbled; and before any of them could catch me in my lie, I was walking away from the lunch table as fast as I could without actually running, fighting the urge to dive into the nearest classroom and scream as loudly as I could. Nobody tried to stop me from leaving.

"Usagi? Usa—"

I was going crazy. I had to be. I was imagining things.

"Where's she going?"

"I thought that Haruna-sensei canceled detention today—something about a lunch date…"

I rounded the cafeteria corner and broke into a sprint, suddenly desperate to leave the roomful of unsuspecting students as far behind me as I could.

Because there was no way that the lunch table, the relatively clean wooden lunch table that I had eaten at with my friends every day for the past semester, was suddenly covered with a million miniscule carvings written inside identical little heart-shaped bubbles, all glaring up at me with the same mocking message:

_I love Chiba Mamoru_.

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Of three things I was sure regarding today's bizarre events, all of which I now penned hastily into my C.M. Handbook as I sat huddled behind the school dumpster:

1. **Mamoru can somehow control peoples' minds.**

2. **Mamoru is using this power to make people fall in love with him.**

3. Was Ami-chan going all goggle-eyed over him at lunch, too, or was that just me? I hope that was just me, because if that wasn't and she was really making those doe eyes at her soda then we've lost all hope for humani— (furious cross-out marks and splotches of black ink) **Mamoru is still the world's biggest jerk.**

I chewed nervously on the end of my pen, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I reread the words on the open page.

None of it made any _sense_.

It was the only explanation I could come up with for everyone's behavior today—the odd encounter with the doodled-heart-eyes girl this morning, Haruna-sensei's bizarre explosion in class, the dream-like state of all of my friends, the reminders of _him_ emblazoned all over the place like Big Brother breathing down my neck…My God, it was enough to make a seagull puke, and I knew for a fact that they were physically incapable of doing it.

I raised my hand—to hit something or strangle myself, I wasn't sure what. If the baka himself had been here, crouching behind a dumpster with me, I probably would have punched him.

Of course, I could just be overly paranoid.

"Ugh! This sucks," I moaned, flinging my pen against the trash bin. It bounced off and hit me hard on the nose in vindictive retaliation.

As if the sudden impact was the key to unlocking Pandora's Box, another thought, barging rudely into my mind, nearly sent me flying to my feet in horror.

_What if _I _was next?_

I forced myself to breathe deeply, reasoning with myself that the paper bags in the trash probably weren't best option for fending off the hyperventilation attack I could feel creeping up on me. I would probably end up stabbing myself with a disease-infected needle if I dug through _that _mess.

'You can't be next, Usagi,' I finally scolded myself with as much conviction I could muster in my subconscious voice. 'There must be some sort of prerequisite or—or some sort of weakness that makes someone vulnerable to these sudden conversions. Otherwise, why would you, the sole person who he hates the most in all of Tokyo, be the only one who's still sane?'

I smiled wryly. I was having a conversation with a voice in my head. How sane could I be?

'Sane enough to know better than to like him,' the little voice whispered sardonically in my head.

Fair enough.

"Okay, so I still have my wits about me _now_," I said aloud. "But what if I'm not the only one? What if all of today has just been one long string of coincidences, and the world isn't going crazy at all?"

'There's one way to find out,' the sneaky voice cooed, refusing to be quashed out of the picture.

I froze. Of course there was.

'Just one little test,' the voice murmured in a pleasing tone. 'That's all it'll take for you to be sure.'

But did I have the guts to do it?

The way I saw it, crouched here at the far end of the school yard behind a week's worth of rotting mystery meat and dumped cheat sheets, I had two options.

I could sit here and pray that the love bug, if it existed at all, did not prefer blondes.

Or…or I could march to where I knew he would be this afternoon, possibly wreak complete and total havoc on the entire population of Tokyo, ruin my reputation permanently, and find out once and for all what I was up against.

Well, gee. I wonder what I was going to do.

Was there ever any question?

"Hang on tight," I muttered to the spine of the notebook as I shoved it back into my bookbag and stood up. I buckled under the weight of my bag, although I was sure that my legs had been shaking before I had even put it on.

"This is going to be one hell of a bumpy ride."

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'Okay, Usagi, calm down,' I told myself as my feet drew nearer and nearer to my self-designated destination of doom. 'It's only a coincidence. Just tell him what you saw. If he doesn't believe you now…well, _then_ you can think about what you need to do…'

Inside my head, the sly voice snickered.

"Ohh, I can't do this!" I moaned, my feet carrying me along of their own volition even as my mind mentally commanded them to stop. "This is social suicide! He'll laugh me straight out of the arcade!"

"If you're talking about somebody seeing your latest test score," an amused voice cut in from somewhere over my shoulder, "then you are dangerously close to being right for once."

I was spitting out the venomous words before I had time to even whip around and face him.

"Mamoru-baka, I'll have you know that your damn comments are not appre—"

"Whoa, whoa there, Odango—easy, you might offend someone with your dirty mouth." The grin slapped across Chiba Mamoru's smug face told me that he wasn't in the least bit offended. "Feeling cranky today, are we?"

"Maybe." I spun around and left him standing on the street corner, praying that he would take the hint and just disappear for the rest of the day.

This, ladies and gentleman, is called wishful thinking.

"So, Odango…"

"So _what?_"

Even cockroaches, who could survive nuclear fallout and the meteor that turned all life on Earth into a pile of ashy goop, did not stand a chance against the stubborn persistence of Chiba Mamoru.

"So are you going to tell me what happened at school today?" he asked, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. "Or do I have to resort to alternate measures?"

I scowled at the cloudless blue stretch of sky, too perfect for such a hellish day as this one was turning out to be. "Since when did you ever care what happens in my life?" I snapped, refusing to look at him.

He was wearing that ugly green jacket again. Only he could wear that awful thing and not be arrested for disturbing the peace.

"Well, gee, almost never—"

"There you go."

"—except maybe now." He grinned at me. "To infuriate you."

"Well, congratulations," I muttered under my breath, speeding up. "You win."

"As it so happens," he continued, not even breaking a sweat even though I felt ready to melt in this smothering heat. "I do have a question for you today."

"What?" I snapped irritably, wishing my moon wand was actually good for something in situations like these. Well, it _was_ good for things, but I didn't think Luna would appreciate me bringing home Mamoru as a boxful of moon dust.

"Why your cat has been following me around all day?"

On second thought, Mamoru in ashes and Luna dying from a heart attack sounded like a _very_ desirable combination.

"_What?_" I screeched for the umpteenth time, whirling on him. "First you steal my friends, my peace of mind, and now you've stolen my _cat_?"

Mamoru stopped so abruptly that my raging feet would have carried me halfway across the block if he had not reached out to pull me back. "Wait—peace of mind I can understand, but when did I ever steal your friends?"

Oops. Did I say that out loud? "Never mind," I muttered, trying to disentangle myself from his suddenly too-tight grasp.

"You're almost as bad a liar as you are a student, Odango," he observed.

"I'm only as good a liar as you are a person."

He flashed a rueful smile, and I felt my legs wobble slightly underneath me at the sight. Traitors. "A very good liar, then."

I ignored him and wrenched my hand from his iron grip.

"Let go," I spat, glaring at him when my arm didn't budge. So much for having Sailor Senshi superpowers.

He only grinned wider. "Make me."

"Are you sure you don't want to rephrase that command?" I replied, my fingers inching towards the crystal brooch on the front of my uniform. Two seconds, one incantation…that was all it would take…

"What are you going to do, Odango, whine my ears off?" A wicked gleam flashed in Mamoru's eyes. "Are you bringing home another bottom-of-the-class grade to your mommy today—or would that be bottom of the school?"

"Why, you…"

"'Ooh, nobody loves me, Mamoru! I have meatballs for brains and can't even stand in one place without falling!'"

"Shut up!" I growled, clenching my fists.

"Too bad that's the only way you can ever get Motoki to look at you," he taunted, laughing as a rush of heat flooded my face. "What were you plotting to do this time? Bawl off the ears of a customer? I bet that would get his att—"

_Bam!_

My fist went soaring through the air and hit him square in the chest.

I barely had time to register the look that crossed Mamoru's face: not pain, or even shock—I hadn't meant it enough to really leave a mark—but surprise. Real, genuine surprise.

And then I was pelting full-speed down the street, hardly caring where I was going or what I was running to. My right hand was still throbbing, and my temples felt like they were about to explode.

Why had I ever thought it would be a good idea to warn him about whatever impending doom was looming over his head at this very moment, anyway? Who _cared_ if a mob of the most adoring, beautiful women in Tokyo threw themselves at the feet of the cold-hearted baka and let him do with them as he pleased?

"H-hey, Odango! Oy! You forgot your bag, you idiot!"

Not. Me.

The arcade doors slid open with a soft _whoosh_, the sound of cheery clicking and whirring and murmuring saluting my ears.

The moment I had made it safely inside, I snatched one of the magazines off of the counter without looking and stomped over to an empty corner booth in the very back. Then, because my notebook was in my backpack, which was in the hands of the malignant devil-man outside, and which I didn't want now anyway because malignance was probably contagious, I whipped open the magazine with more force than necessary and pretended it was Mamoru-baka's head.

It took me a moment, after I had calmed down a little bit, to realize that I was looking at an advertisement. The picture depicted a couple walking into the sunset on a beach holding hands, the words splashed across the bottom, "THIS COULD BE YOU. HAWAII. THE ULTIMATE ROMANTIC GETAWAY."

My eyes roved angrily across the page, skimming across the shadowy faces of the two lovers, the chiseled outline of the man's features glowing in the fire of—

I blinked.

For a heart-stopping moment, I could have sworn that those piercing blue eyes staring at me from out of the page looked strangely familiar.

'Stop it!' I immediately scolded myself, squeezing my eyes shut. 'He's getting into your head!'

It was only when the thoughts raging through my head had sufficiently beaten my emotions into submission that I dared crack one eye open and turn the page.

"Usagi?"

The full-page spread of a shirtless man advertising domestic silverware went flying up into the air as I jumped in my seat.

"Geez, Motoki," I gasped, "Don't _do_ that!"

"Sorry, Usagi-chan," Motoki chuckled, stooping over to pick up the magazine and handing it to me. "Just wondering if you wanted anything to drink, you've been sitting over here for a while." He looked around with a sheepish smile, his fingers dancing around the fringes of his apron. "Where're Minako and the girls today? After-school event?"

"No idea," I fibbed, glancing over at the arcade clock. 3:30 PM. If my theory (which I was determined not to think about anymore) was right, then they were probably hidden away in a conspiratorial huddle somewhere in a dark alley plotting how best to win a certain man's affections.

And then I remembered why I was tucked away in a corner booth, trying to avoid all possible human contact.

Oh yeah. Because I desperately wanted to punch somebody's lights out.

"I'll have a triple-chocolate malt milkshake," I blurted. I would have to some explaining to do if my fist was suddenly embedded in the side of his too-perfect face.

"At your service," he said, winking. I let out of a sigh of relief as he turned to walk away, but he hadn't gone two steps when he turned around again. "Oh! I almost forgot. Your backpack's still on the counter, should I go get it for you?"

"My…wait, _my_ backpack?" I frowned. "I didn't leave my backpack there."

Motoki ran one hand through his hair, looking thoughtful. "Yeah—the pink one with bunnies on it, right?" he finally asked. "You must have left it there when you picked up the magazine and forgot about it."

"Uhh…yeah, of course." I blinked. Motoki was staring at me, looking slightly confused. I managed a smile that reassured him I was still sane. Sort of. "I mean, it's okay, I'll go get it. Thanks for reminding me, Motoki."

He nodded and began to walk away again.

"Hey! Motoki?"

He turned around.

"Did…" I swallowed hard. "Did Mamoru…baka, I mean, did he come in?" I asked, trying not to sound as if the fate of the universe depended on his answer.

Motoki's face split into an ear-to-ear grin. He would be the first to go when I figured out how to work this whole crystal mind-washing thing out; the dratted man knew too much for his own good.

"Yeah, he just left a moment ago," he replied with a smile. "I think you can still catch him—er, if you wanted to catch him, that is."

I mumbled an inaudible "thanks," waited ten seconds for Motoki to disappear into the back room, then sprinted for the door, snagging up my pack on the way out.

For a moment, blinking stupidly in the dazzling sunlight outside of the arcade doors, I thought Mamoru's impossibly long legs had already carried him halfway across the city. I finally spotted him, however, standing next to a motorcycle parked in front of the dry cleaner's.

"H-hey! Hang on, baka!"

I ran over to his bike, mentally kicking myself as I went for admiring the leather jacket he had exchanged for his green one. It made him look less like an overgrown weed and more like he actually knew what he was doing.

'Yeah, like making you look like an idiot drooling all over him,' I scolded myself, hurrying over to him before I could lose my nerve and _really_ started drooling.

"Hey, are you deaf or something?" I gasped when I was finally standing in front of him, dragging my bag behind me. "I told you to wait!"

He swung his other leg over onto the motorcycle as if he hadn't heard me and revved the engine a little bit harder than necessary—it roared noisily to life, hissing at me like a live animal.

After a few moments had passed with me standing dumbly in front of his motorcycle, it became clear to me that he wasn't planning on engaging in civil conversation anytime soon. That's when I began yelling over the noise of the engine.

"You know," I began, finding it harder to talk to the stony-faced man in front of me than over the roar of the motorcycle, "I really appreciate the courtesy, but you could at least have the decency—"

"What, so you're talking to me now, are you, Odango?" Mamoru cut in coolly. "No more punches to deliver? Or do I owe this pleasure to some ulterior motive—to please a certain arcade worker, perhaps?" His eyes flitted briefly to my bag before settling, uncompromising, on me again.

So much for civil conversation.

"This isn't about him," I began.

Mamoru's eyes narrowed. "No?"

"I don't know what you're—" I tried again.

"So that episode a few minutes ago," he spat, ignoring me, "and you running out now after talking to him—all of that was just a coincidence? I mention his name once and—"

"And _what_?" I demanded, hot tears welling up in my eyes despite myself. It had suddenly hit me what all of this was about, and it definitely wasn't a punch. He wasn't angry because I had hit him, or insulted him, or even run away from him; no, of all the things he had a right to be angry about, he was angry because he thought I was acting on Motoki's orders and running after him like an obliging dog.

And _that_—he didn't have a right to be mad about at all.

"And what?" Mamoru retorted, his voice rising with every word. "And you think I don't have the right to be angry that you can't even stay for a second to have a decent conversation—"

"—_who_ was having a decent conversation—"

"—because you need to run off crying to your…your silly _crush_—"

"—I ran off because—"

"—the moment you have an excuse to do it—"

"—because you were hurting me, you baka!"

Whatever he had been expecting me to say next…I would have bet my arcade money that that wasn't it.

"Look, you," I finally mumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed by the look of disbelief slapped across his face, "I didn't come out here to fight with you, okay? I just wanted to say…thank you. Er…you know, for returning my bag. And sorry. About earlier. I was having…erm…"

I looked for a phrase that didn't involve the words "psychotic," "break," or "too much of you."

"…a bad day."

Well, I guess you could sort of call it that.

I stared at my shoes for so long that, for a second, I thought that he had abandoned the bike and simply taken off running. I finally chanced a peek up.

For a moment, I thought his jaw was going to unhinge itself and fall right off of his gaping face. Mamoru blinked, studied the red helmet in his hands with a contemplative expression, then jammed it without warning onto his head and jerked the bike into reverse gear.

I didn't know much about bikes, but I knew what all of those actions meant: he was going to run for it.

"H-hey!"

_Well, hell_, the indignant voice inside of my head trumpeted, _not if I have any say about it!_

I glared at the man sitting in front of me poised for flight, his helmet obscuring those eyes which only a moment ago had been filled with unmistakable horror. I had lost too much precious time worrying over his overinflated head, praying that I would make it through the next meal without seeing his face in every scoop of rice, wondering if the next girl carving his name onto a wooden lunch table would be me—

_You tell him, girl!_ the voice trilled, triumphant.

I gritted my teeth and took a step forward. I had gone through too damn much in one day for him, and he was staying to hear me out, even if I had to say the words that I had been dreading all afternoon, the words that were now bursting forth on my lips…

"Ba—I mean, Mamoru, you _idiot_—don't you see? The whole world has fallen in love with you!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Selene, please!"

"Shh! It's getting to the good part!"

"This isn't a soap—"

"_Shh!_"

"I'm just saying," her companion mumbled, flopping onto the couch in defeat. "You know, if you spent half as much time worrying about your own future as you do meddling in others'—"

"Thoth, what in the moon are you going on about over there? Either come over here and listen or leave the room, but don't keep buzzing at my ear like a pixie; the Receptor's sensitive enough as it is."

"If you spent nearly half as much time on your own life," the young man sighed, getting up and conjuring himself a seat next to the goddess, "you might find that you could stop monitoring other people's love lives and build one of your own instead."

"What?"

"Never mind," he muttered in a resigned voice, settling in closer for a better view of the mirror. "It's nothing."

"Good. Now if you're all finished with your complaining…Alethia-o-meter, let the real fun begin."

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Even through his shaded visor, I could see his blue eyes widen.

He stared at me for a second, looking as stunned as if I had just whacked him over the head with a sledgehammer. "What?" he finally managed, blinking.

"Wa-wait, don't get me wrong!" I cut in hastily, seeing where this was headed. Nowhere good, that was for sure. "I don't mean _I_—I mean, the whole isn't _me_—what I mean is, that—ARGH! You're so dense, baka!" I lowered my voice to a hiss, looking all around us as I spoke. I could see more than one pair of eyes pressed up against the arcade glass, glowering in our direction. "Don't you _see_ it?"

"See what? That you've gone completely nuts, Odango? Because, yes, funny enough, I seem to be beginning to feel—"

"Stop being a smart ass for once and just _listen_ to me, okay, baka?" The change in my tone must have caught him by surprise, because he pulled off his helmet and looked me straight in the eye. I took a deep breath and continued. "Just…just stay inside or something, okay? Lock your doors and throw up the barricades, I don't care. But you've got to trust me on this one. Something's happened to Tokyo—maybe _you_ did it, but judging by the blank look on your face—"

"I'm just imitating _you_," Mamoru began, but I silenced him with the dirtiest look I could muster.

"—but judging but your look," I went on, glowering at him, "I don't think that's the case anymore. So just—just disappear for a while, okay? Go AWOL. Because for once in my life, I'm nearly positive that I almost kind of know something…for certain."

For a moment, I thought that my message had actually sunk in. I thought that maybe for once, that last less-than-reassuring statement wouldn't throw him off. I could see his brain shift into overdrive. He was considering it, at least.

And that's when the damn idiot's face split into a wide, 500-watt grin.

"Sure, Odango," he laughed, his jaunty swagger back faster than a cheetah on steroids. "I believe you. And I tell you what, I'm going to crawl into my little hole now, okay?"

I smacked myself hard on the forehead and prayed that a bolt of lightning from above would split this man's dense skull open. There was no hope of getting through to him otherwise.

"Mamoru, you are so stupid sometimes!"

"Flattering that you only think I'm intellectually-impaired half of the time," he chortled, stuffing his helmet back onto his head and flipping up the visor so he could wink at me. "It's been really interesting talking to you today, Odango. You almost had me going there for a second!"

"No, you don't understand—" I tried again, but he had already flipped down his visor again.

"Jaa, Odango," he yelled over the roar of the engine, pausing for a second to turn and wave to me. I could barely make out his eyes, full of mirth…and something else I couldn't quite read in his shrouded expression. "I don't know how you do it, Odango, but you've got me going up and down like no other person in Tokyo!"

"_Listen to me, you idiot,_" I shouted, "You can't_—!"_

But he was already gone.

"—go…out there. Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I scolded myself, turning away from the curb. I didn't know who I was more angry at at the moment: Mamoru-baka, who was dooming himself to an Apocalyptic end, or the girls inside the arcade who still had their fingers pressed up against the glass and were now glaring at me like a pack of underfed wolves, deprived of their prey. "Oh, scram, you minions of the Netherworld," I snapped, slamming a hand against the glass and sending them scurrying back into their dark caves of brewing plots.

There was nothing more for it. I had tried my best, and…

'Ah ah ah, not so fast,' the little voice in my head crooned from its spot in the very corner of my mind.

Hamlet would have been considered sane compared to me.

'We are not having this conversation,' I mentally snapped back, irrevocably and unconditionally binding myself to the conversation that I was determined _not_ to be a part of.

'What harm could it do to talk?' the sly tongue slipped in again. 'What about that little back-up plan we originally discussed, hm?'

"A strawberry parfait," I compromised in desperation, playing for time. "A strawberry parfait at home, and _then_ we'll talk."

'Deal,' the little voice replied smugly, settling back into its dark corner with a satisfied laugh. 'It's so much more fun talking to you when you're on a sugar high, anyway.'

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The only thing I have to say about it is, I never got to eat that strawberry parfait.

Part of it was because Luna, that good-for-nothing traitor, had rigged the refrigerator.

Another part of it was because, by the time I had trudged all the way home, dragged myself through the door, confirmed my previous suspicions of Luna's absence from the house, and unsuccessfully tried to pry open the fridge door, I was dead beat.

But the honest part of me, the part of my heart that harbored that sly little voice, knew that it was because I didn't want to think about what was coming next.

So I kicked off my shoes, passed by the kitchen with a grumbling stomach, and shuffled down the hallway.

My parents were both in the living room, their eyes glued to the television set as dramatic music issued from it, announcing the seven o' clock news. Neither of them noticed their hungry, slightly under-the-weather daughter trundle past; my dad, who I assumed had come home early from work, was sitting less than a meter from the screen, his head blocking from view whatever story it was that anchor guy Bob Smile-A-Lot was currently letting his toupee fly over. Nobody bothered asking me if I was hungry.

I was.

That might have been the reason why, when I finally crawled into bed in my darkened room, threw the covers over my head, and felt myself drifting off into a restless sleep, I dreamt.

I dreamed I was back on the sidewalk in front of the Crown.

The sun was blazing brightly overhead. The cars driving past on the streets faded into a low hum in the background, the conversations of passerby a soft tinkling in my ears. The air surrounding me felt oddly still…peaceful.

A red motorcycle was parked next to the curb.

I turned away from it and looked instead into the Crown, whose dimly-lit interior revealed one or two customers sitting at the counter. Motoki was nowhere in sight. He was probably still in the back room, weathering the lull between the morning rush of coffee-mongers and the students who would flood into the arcade after the school bell rang.

I turned and began walking in the opposite direction. There was no point of me going in at this hour. It wouldn't be the same without…

…without what?

I stopped in my tracks. Something else was missing. Something important.

But I felt better than I had in a very, very long time. For once, I felt _complete_. What could I possibly be missing?

I spun around again with a feeling of mounting annoyance, waiting for the arcade doors to slide open so I could go inside and ask Motoki if there was anything he needed. Maybe there was an errand he had sent me on that I had forgotten about.

The feeling of wholeness inside of me shook a little at the thought; that wasn't it. It wasn't Motoki.

Then I realized that the doors still hadn't opened.

I frowned, tapping my fingernails against the closed doors. The couple sitting at the counter did not turn to look at me. Through the dimness of the room, I suddenly spotted my backpack sitting on the counter, two seats away from them. What was it doing there? Was that what I had been forgetting?

I had just raised my fist to knock on the glass when I felt a something warm press against my shoulder. I whirled around in surprise, only to find myself staring into a pair of ice-blue eyes.

_His_ eyes.

"Mamoru…" I breathed.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips at the sound of his name, and he let his hand fall to his side. I waited for his usual caustic remark, but none came.

"Hey," I said suddenly, tearing my eyes away from his intent gaze and blinking. "That's mine."

I had just noticed my backpack, slung casually over one shoulder.

He handed it to me without a word and I took it from him, slightly confused.

"But my backpack…" I began, pointing inside to where I could still see an identical bag sitting on the counter. Even as we watched, however, the girl sitting closest to it reached inside and pulled something out to show to the man. I recognized the object in her hand immediately.

It was my notebook.

"H-hey!" I exclaimed, rapping hard on the glass. "Hey, that's mine!" I held up the backpack to Mamoru. "You must have picked up the wrong backpack, Mamoru, this one's n-not…mine…"

The rest of the words died on my lips as I saw what he was holding in his hand.

My notebook.

"H-how did you get that?" I demanded when I finally found my voice again, staring in astonishment between the two books. "Where did you find it?"

He didn't answer.

"Y-you…haven't read it, have you?" I asked in a whisper.

His eyes grew a little softer.

I reached out to take the notebook from him. It felt heavy in my hands, as if it carried the burden of many unspoken secrets. And although he did not say a single word, I could read his thoughts plainly in his eyes.

_Open it_, they whispered to me.

I held Mamoru's gaze for one long, final moment, unwilling to break the moment of contact. I managed to pull my eyes away from his long enough to glance down. The book almost slipped from between my fingers when I saw what was there.

Written in an elegant scrawl that spilled across the entire page was the same message, over and over again:

_Tsukino Usagi loves Chiba Mamoru._

I turned the page, my hands trembling. And another. And another. The words jeered at me from the page, mocking the sense of horror welling up deep inside of me.

_Tsukino Usagi…_

_Usagi loves…_

_Chiba Mamoru, Tsukino Usagi loves…_

"No!" I cried, tearing my eyes away to look up at Mamoru. "I didn't—that wasn't—"

I froze.

His expression had changed. The small, slightly crooked smile of only seconds before had twisted into something awful. Something I couldn't bear.

Hatred.

Loathing burned in his eyes.

Before I could move, I heard the sound of ringing laughter behind me.

I wrenched my eyes away from his in time to see the couple inside the arcade looking at us. The lady had finally turned around in her seat, and the mere sight of her stopped my heart. She was beautiful. The pearl-white gown that she wore followed the smooth curves of her body and swept past her ankle to the floor, mirroring the cascades of her silvery hair as they flowed, immaterial, down the length of her back. She covered her mouth with one hand as she giggled, her entrancing gold eyes never leaving mine.

Familiar eyes. Eyes I knew.

I couldn't make out who the young man beside her was. His face was shrouded by the shadows.

"Mamoru," I pleaded softly, turning to face Mamoru again. I had to tell him…I had to show him before it was too late…

But he wasn't there.

"Mamoru?" I whispered. Then, desperation building up inside of me… "_Mamoru?"_

I whirled around to face the beautiful goddess inside; she would have seen him leave, she would know where he was headed now…

She was suddenly standing on the other side of the glass. She smiled.

_Usagi_.

She pressed her hand against the glass, inviting me with a look to do the same. Her fingers left no imprint where they touched. Her serenity calmed me, and for a moment I forgot everything except the etherealness of her presence. My own hand shook as I raised it slowly to hers and, holding my breath, placed it to thin sliver of transparency.

Immediately, I felt a warm glow course through my fingertips and fill my entire body. Something lost, something regained…

I looked up at the young woman in astonishment.

The golden eyes had turned to blue.

_Usagi._

A mirror.

_Usagi…_

So familiar…this warmth…this feeling…

_Serenity…_

Somebody was calling…I didn't want to go back…

_Serenity, please…_

Not now…not when it was all coming back to me…

_Tsukino Usagi…I command you to wake up._

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My eyes flew open.

My right hand was still raised above my head, grappling for a hold on something that was not there.

I slowly lowered my hand and clenched the covers, letting the cold sweat press into my palms. Time passed without taking me along with it—it could have been a minute, an hour, a day that I lay there in the dark, unmoving, unseeing. And then something suddenly occurred to me.

I sat up and fumbled for the light.

I had no idea what the dream was supposed to mean. I had never seen that woman and man before in my life. I didn't know who Serenity was or why somebody was calling her name.

But I did know what this was about.

I wrenched open the drawer on my bedside table, bracing myself for the inevitable.

There.

The golden symbols on my notebook glowed under the lamplight.

I picked it up cautiously by the spine, as if afraid that it might burst into flames in my hands and destroy all evidence that the past two days had really happened.

When no sign of sparks appeared, however, I cracked the notebook open to the first page and immediately let out a sigh of relief. The words that I had written across the top when I first received the book, _CHIBA MAMORU alias "Jerk Extraordinaire," "Devil of the Middle-World," "His Royal Weenie-ness,"_ etcetera etcetera," were still there.

The feeling of relief, however, passed as quickly as it came. A feeling of panic constricted my chest.

My dream was obviously not a work of my imagination. There was no way that I, the only girl in class who had managed to fail art class in primary school, could have made all of that up inside my own head.

No, it was trying to tell me something. Something important. Regardless of how those thoughts had gotten there, they had found a way to send me a message.

And I had a sinking feeling that I knew what that message was.

'Finally caught on, have you?' the sly voice in my head whispered, one step ahead of the game.

I shook my head vigorously, trying to drown out my own thoughts.

'No use, no use,' it cooed, pushing to the forefront of my mind. 'You know exactly why you had that dream, and now you know what you need to do about it…'

"No!" I shouted, hurling the notebook to the floor and covering my ears with my hands. "_Stop telling me what to do!_"

For once, over my ragged breathing and tumultuous thoughts, the voice stayed silent. After a moment, I got out of bed and picked up the notebook again, staring at the reflective light dancing from the gold lettering.

Yes, I knew what I had to do.

"_Okay, so I still have my wits about me now," I said aloud. "But what if I'm not the only one? What if all of today has just been one long string of coincidences, and the world isn't going crazy at all?"_

'_There's one way to find out,' the sneaky voice cooed, refusing to be quashed out of the picture._

_I froze. Of course there was._

'_Just one little test,' the voice murmured in a pleasing tone. 'That's all it'll take for you to be sure.'_

And that's when it hit me, standing in the middle of my room, still dressed in my rumpled school uniform and clutching onto the notebook in my hands, what I was going to have done by this time the very next day.

I was going to kiss Chiba Mamoru.

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For those of you who think I'm off my rocker for making that last jump to a conclusion that probably makes no sense to you whatsoever, I have two comments:

One, you're probably right. I probably have gone insane. But then again, you're probably crazy too for reading a story being told by a nuts person. So congratulations to you for being right, you crazy person, you, and no, you don't win a cookie.

Two, my idea makes perfect sense. Let me explain why.

If I wanted to make Mamoru see what was really going on here, then the best way would be for him to see for himself, right? And the only way to accomplish _that_, without knocking him over the head with a hammer (although that's still an option), is to take it to extremes.

Now, you're asking yourself, how exactly do you go about _showing_ a man that, say, the entire population of Tokyo—besides yourself, that is (and by "yourself," I mean me, because in all probability _you_ already love him with a passion, or you wouldn't be here reading this)—has fallen in love with him?

Simple. You do what the actors in the movies do when they need someone to profess their love but only have ten more minutes of screen time left before the movie ends.

You make them jealous.

And the best way to do _that_?

Bingo. You guessed it. And no, you still don't win a cookie. My cookie.

And then you sit back and watch all of Tokyo fly into a manic uproar.

Not bad, huh? Minus the whole kissing-my-arch-nemesis-for-reasons-unknown-to-even-myself thing, of course.

So all of you who fell off a few stops back…welcome back aboard the train! Passengers, please fasten your seatbelts—if you're ready to keep moving, the story is about to continue.

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Three things happened when I woke up that next accursed morning.

The first was the newspaper article.

The second was school.

The third is the best part of the story, and in order to stave off the inevitable point in time when you realize that this story has no intrinsic value whatsoever, I'm going to keep you in suspense until after I finish with the first two points.

Okay, so on with the newspaper.

I was trudging my feet down the hall the early the next morning—trudging, because that's what people do when they're feeling down about certain things, like being condemned to premature doom in a few hours (as it so happened in my case)—when I heard my parents' voices coming from the kitchen. I raised my eyebrows. What was anybody in the house doing up at (I squinted at the clock) 5:45 a.m.? Was that even legal?

Apparently, that's the same question that my parents had on their minds when they saw me, because my dad screamed and my mom dropped the frying pan. Scrambled eggs hailed down from the ceiling, and if I hadn't been unusually conscious of how real the situation was, I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven. I mean, it _was_ raining food.

"Usagi!" Mom gasped, one hand clutching her heart and the other sweeping up the mess of eggs with a broom that had appeared out of nowhere.

I grinned. Mom the Miracle Worker, back in action.

"_Usa?_" my dad asked, wiping his glasses furiously and shoving them back onto the bridge of his nose. "What are you doing up? Er, honey?" he added hastily.

"Wanted to get an early start," I said, shrugging. Which was true. I did want to be savor as many hours as possible before…well, _you_ know.

"Have some bacon, Usa," my mom said, ever the sensible one. She swept a mound of food onto my plate that would have made King Midas' feast look tiny in comparison and pushed the entire savory heaping under my nose. "Enjoy!" she trilled.

"'Fanks, Mum," I managed through a delicious mouthful of sausage.

She beamed at me, her hands scrubbing at the counter all the while.

"Pass the sugar, please," Dad said, having finally managed to regain his composure and taking a seat at the table. I passed him the sugar bowl, which he missed, grabbing the salt shaker instead and dumping a heaping into his coffee as his eyes scanned the newspaper in front of him.

"Dad, it's kind of creepy when you go without blinking like that."

He blinked once and went on reading.

"Wharre you—" I swallowed and tried again. "What're you reading, Dad?" If I could get him to look up at me for even a second, I might be able to wrangle the comics page from him.

"It's just an art—_echhh!_" Brown liquid went flying. I ducked under the table, my face splitting into a wide grin.

My dad had tried drinking out of the salt mine that had accumulated in his cup.

"What the…?" he demanded, spitting out mouthfuls of coffee onto the floor (my mom glowered from the corner where she was polishing the countertops). "_What happened to my coffee?_"

I lunged across the table, where my dad was still yelling at the coffee mug (I guess talking to inanimate objects runs in the family), snatched up the newspaper, and ran off into the living room with a gleeful whoop.

"Now…" I said to the paper, plopping onto the couch where I would be safe from interruptions, "Where are you, my little comics?"

Hey, I told you it was a genetics thing.

My triumphant victory, however, died a quick and painful death.

The article my dad had been reading trumpeted at me out of the pages. Emblazoned across the top of the recto was a large headline:

"Prodigy Announces Her Worthy, Idolized, Incredibly Good-Looking Inspiration"

But it wasn't the overblown title that stopped my heart. It wasn't even the picture that I could have easily convinced myself was _not_ who I thought it was before flipping the page.

It was the name.

My eyes stayed open just long enough for me to read the caption:

_Chiba Mamoru, the perfect man._

And then it all hit me at once.

The news report last night.

My dad home early from work.

My mom's unusual cleaning frenzy…a neat freak, just like—just like…

"Oh my g—"

And that's when the room went black.

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Okay, so maybe I overreacted a little. Alright, maybe I overreacted a lot.

Next thing I knew, however, I was off on my jolly way to school (I told my parents I had knocked my head on the coffee table after tripping over the rug, a story which, bless their souls, they believed). My nose was still buried in—you guessed it—the newspaper.

Granted, I already knew the article back and forth better than Ami knows the World Encyclopedia.

But I was also feeling a little peeved at Ami at the moment; not least of all because, after rereading the introduction at least five times, it finally sank in who had written the dratted article itself.

Do I even need to say it?

So I was early to school. It was a beautiful Thursday morning. The birds were chirping in the trees that, for atmosphere's sake, we'll imagine were not being smothered with the exhaust of rush hour traffic.

Except this morning, there _was_ no rush hour traffic.

The streets were completely empty. I crossed the street without glancing up.

Then I passed by the arcade which, if I had not been quite so preoccupied, I would have noticed was nearly bursting with a whole lot of estrogen and one happy-looking Motoki.

I kept walking.

I managed to make it all the way to school and inside the gates without once looking up from the paper, up the stairs and all the way to my classroom.

_Then_ I looked up—and immediately wished I hadn't.

I felt my legs buckle dangerously underneath me as the red lettering splashed across the entire classroom door glared at me.

_School canceled indefinitely—National C.M. in Effect_

The scream that followed reverberated throughout the entire school, shattering the windows the lined the hall.

And that, ladies and gentleman, brings us to hellish Point Number Three.

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Now that the entire school had gone over to the Dark Side, I knew that nowhere was safe anymore. Home was no longer an option. I didn't want to spend the remainder of my days sitting by a dusty chalkboard, either, although I suspected that nobody would think to look for me at school. That left only one place where I would still stand a change of retaining my sanity.

Of course, I didn't know how long I would keep my head at Mamoru's place.

That was why I, the slightly blasphemous atheist schoolgirl who frequently invoked higher beings as a form of cursing, was now praying outside of the definitely-over-maximum-occupancy arcade as if my life depended on it.

It did, in a manner of speaking.

'Make Mamoru walk by right now and let me get this over with so that I don't have to deal with it later," I thought furiously for the umpteenth time, my eyes squeezed shut in concentration, 'and I swear I'll give up chocolate—er, maybe just chocolate mousse—for life.'

I cracked open one eye. Nope. Not a living soul in sight, except for the hundred-odd girls still jammed up against the arcade window.

I blew my bangs out of my face and shut my eyes again, trying to drown out the sound of their jostling and shrieks for a spot by the glass. '_Fine_,' I amended in exasperation, '_chocolate_, then, you big greedy Almighty up there, I'll give up choc—'

"What're you doing, Odango, trying to give birth to a block of chocolate or something?"

My eyes flew open.

"M-Mamo…? Ohmigod, _Mamoru-baka!"_

And without thinking, I threw myself into his arms.

I heard an indistinct roar shake the entire arcade.

I ignored it because they were annoying little prats, and I had seen this coming. _He_ ignored it because…well, because I think he was incapable of seeing anything but me at the moment, thank you very much.

To say that he looked "surprised" would probably be the understatement of the millennium.

"_O-Odango?_" Mamoru finally stammered, heat rushing visibly to his face. "W-What're you…?"

I lifted my face from where it was buried in his chest—no wonder he wore that ugly green jacket all the time, it felt _good_—and raised my eyes to his.

His very, very shocked blue eyes.

His arms tensed automatically like stone around my body. This had the unanticipated effect of drawing me closer to him, which I was perfectly happy to let him do (though I couldn't explain even to myself why this was). I could feel his breath tickling my forehead, could make out every detail of his handsome face that I had been able to see up close only once before, an afternoon ago.

All in all, I had done a pretty good job putting the pieces into place without even knowing it.

I cursed myself silently. Couldn't I even learn to delay a seduction properly?

"Mamoru-baka," I said firmly, refusing to let myself be disentangled by his strong hands, which did not seem to be pushing me away anyway, or distracted by those gorgeous blue eyes. "I'm doing this for your own good."

I looked up at him—for some sign of confirmation, rejection, even repulsion—and found only bewilderment in his eyes.

Good. He wouldn't even know what hit him.

I took one last look at the arcade window, through which I could make out Rei's head bobbing up and down among the rest of the faces pressed up wildly against the glass, and turned to face Mamoru with a surge of fierce determination.

"You'll thank me for it later," I repeated, bracing myself.

Then I reached up, grasped his coat lapels tightly in my hands, squeezed my eyes shut, and brought his lips crashing down to mine.

The last thought that rushed through my mind before our lips touched, in that instant when I felt his sweet breath mingling with mine, was that if I had not had to kiss Chiba Mamoru, I probably would have wanted to do it anyway.

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End of Chapter Two

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Darn me, I know.

But please, don't let your sudden urge to throw a rotten tomato at me build up inside of you. Let it out!

(In other words, review!)

Nothing like a new chapter to start off the year, eh?

And for everybody who was waiting for this chapter, or not waiting for this chapter but now reading it and thinking that they _could_ have been waiting for this chapter, I commend your enduring patience. Honestly, what were you _thinking_, waiting around for me to update?

Probably something crazy like, "I hope she hasn't been massacred by a rogue Abominable Snowman yet." Hey, it sounds like a justifiable fear to _me_.

Anyway, I'll let you be merry and go off to leave an over-praising, ego-soothing review now. Gold stars if you manage to spot all of the instances of symbolism in the dream, or if you noticed that the end is ridiculously rushed because I was trying to meet today's posting deadline (in which case I'm happy enough that you noticed, and don't mention it ever again).

Happy 2009, all, and hope you're all looking forward to the next installment of "Notebooks!"


	4. Chapter 3

You know, I'd pay good money to know if anybody is actually reading this after (dare I say it?) five months of hiatus, and how many of you are just here to chuck machetes and mushy tomatoes at me. If it makes you feel any better, I feel downright awful. And I actually know what's going to happen in the last two chapters, so please don't kill me!

Anyway, the reason this took so long to post (hooray, justification time!) is: 1) I've been busy (boo, bad excuse!), 2) I hit a dead end with where this story is headed (but it's fixed now, I swear!), and 3) I had to make this chapter where everything develops sound fun. There, I said it. This chapter basically sets up the big events that are going to happen during the rest of the story—but hey! Don't leave! It's still important! And I did have fun writing it, so hopefully all of you will enjoy reading it, too.

This chapter is dedicated to my summer internship, without all of which with the sundry business and coffee-running, I wouldn't have had so much time to vegetate in front of the computer and work on this little baby. Boo-yeah! By the way, did I mention that Dave Eggars co-founded the place I work at and comes in to say hello all the time? Score! To him, I'll always be that sad little girl who helped buy painter's tape so that we could repaint the outer bathroom.

Okay, that's enough stalling. Onward you go!

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Notebooks, Not Love Notes

Ala Verity

Chapter 3

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My fists tightened around the fabric of Mamoru's jacket as I braced myself for the crushing impact of his lips against mine.

But it never came. Mamoru's suddenly alarmed voice sent a rumbling sensation from our pressed bodies down to the very tips of my toes.

"Odango, watch out!"

"Huh?"

Just as my lips puckered up against something soft, a heavy something else rammed against my shoulder, and hard. I didn't even have time to think as that heavy something lifted me clean off my feet, sending me tumbling to the ground.

All of this happened so quickly that I could feel the lump growing on top of my head before my thoughts even had time to rearrange themselves. When I opened my eyes, I found myself sprawled across the sidewalk with all the grace of a beached whale, blood trickling down my freshly-skinned knees.

Either Mamoru was more mind-blowing of a kisser than I had imagined, or he had just thrown me a la wrestling move to the floor when I tried to kiss him! Well, gee, even I didn't think kissing me sounded _that_ repulsive…

"What the heck do you think you're doing, Mamoru-baka?" I demanded, glaring furiously around me when I found nobody in sight. Never mind that I had just tried kissing my biggest enemy of all time and that he probably had a good reason for shoving me away; I had gone through two boxes of breath mints, for crying out loud!

Something glinting under the sunlight distracted me in my vengeful vendetta, however, and I turned in time to see a shiny-handled butcher's knife sticking out of the sidewalk. The tip of the knife quivered, fighting until the bitter end, before the whole thing finally keeled over with an ominous _clink_ to the concrete_. _

I winced. Okay, so maybe getting slammed to the floor by a WWF champ wasn't so bad after all. A split second longer, and that would have been my foot.

If I thought getting stabbed was bad, though, nothing could have prepared me for what came next.

A deafening roar rose up behind me, and I whirled around to see what was happening.

Mamoru was charging straight at me, with what looked like the entire Devil's crusade hot on his heels. As far as I knew, however, Satan's posse didn't consist solely of young, hormonal females. And, by God (and I meant that metaphorically), they looked _pissed_.

"What the hell are you doing on the ground, you idiot? _Run!_" Mamoru yelled at me, elbowing a particularly ugly-looking waitress who had just sidled up to him in the face.

My ability to remain calm under the most absurd circumstances never ceases to amaze me. Judging by the way I remained on the floor, rubbing my knee with all the precision of a chiropractor, you might have thought it was a group of newborn kittens stampeding at me and not a swarm of psychopathic paramours. "Well, maybe if you didn't throw me here, you jerk," I replied, sticking out my tongue out at him defiantly. "Ouch, my knee…That's going to leave a m—"

"No _time_ for that, Odango!" Mamoru advised through gritted teeth, K.O.'ing a thirteen-year old version of Malibu Barbie with a trash can. I raised my eyebrows, grudgingly impressed. Even Sailor Moon wouldn't have thought of using the trash can. Of course, I always assumed that Mamoru was made of sterner stuff than me, as he never failed to remind me…

"Oy! Odango, get off your lazy butt, _now_!"

"Yeah, yeah," I snorted, wiping the bits of rubble from my hand and flying.

Wait! Since when did I have the power to fly?

"Wh-what are you doing?" I squeaked, unsure of what had just happened in the split second I had decided to blink, or why I was now soaring through the streets of Tokyo in the tight embrace of my arch-nemesis. Above me, I could see Mamoru's jaw strain in effort. "Put me down!"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he growled at me, speeding up. "I'm trying to make sure we both live long enough so that I can ask you what the heck you've done to make all of them go raving mad!"

"What _I've_ done? What I've _done_?" I screeched.

"Yes, what you've done—you don't think I'm carrying you because I _want_ to?"

"Gaah! Put me down, you pervert!" I screamed, willfully twisting his statement like I would under any other circumstances. Okay, so reacting logically to crucial moments isn't my forte, sue me. "I have _legs_, you know! Put me DOWN!"

This declaration, I later reflected, would have been better-suited to an occasion when I wasn't flying above the ground at twenty kilometers an hour. Mamoru took one quick glance down at my admittedly shorter-than-usual skirt—_which_, in my defense, was only being heisted to such dangerous heights because _he_ couldn't go a single step without jostling me around like a bumpy rollercoaster. Then he raised his eyes to mine with a look of horror not unlike that of a deer being caught in a hunter's line of sight—the hunter being my father, no doubt—and dropped me.

The gall of that man, really! And they call _me_ clumsy!

I, being the epitome of all that was graceful, crash-landed on my ankle with all the elegance of a flambéd swan. It gave a sharp crack under the weight of my body as I came toppling down on top of it, and I fought back the strangled scream that clawed at my throat as a flare of pain shot through my leg.

Meanwhile Mamoru, who had eyes of a hawk when it came to anything else, conveniently missed all of this, on account of the fact that he was trying to look anywhere _but_ at my legs. Truth be told, I think he was a little more afraid of my dad than the murderous cohort of avenging angels hot on our heels.

I, on the other hand, felt a _tad_ more intimidated by the cohort than my dad. Excuse my priorities, but what my father had to say about this encounter could wait.

"Shi—pick me up, pick me up!" I screeched, scrabbling at Mamoru's pant legs like a grossly oversized newborn.

"Like hell I'm coming anywhere near you! I mean," he amended hastily at my scorching glare, "You just said so yourself, Odango, you have—" Gulp. "—legs."

And he allowed himself to stare purposefully at a point just shy of where my legs were sprawled out on the concrete, as if to indicate to me that I did, indeed, have legs.

I fought back the urge to scream. We were about to be riotously murdered, and all he could worry about was keeping his _ethics?_!

"Well, gee, let's see—that was _before_ you broke my ankle!"

Mamoru looked down at me in surprise, as if he had just noticed me panting on the floor like a wounded dog, clutching at my injured ankle. "How in the world did you manage to hurt your ankle already, Odango?" he asked, raising his eyebrow. "We're still on the same block!"

"When you _dropped_—oh, for goodness' sake! You know, as much _fun_ as I'm having right now, Mamoru-baka," I growled through clenched teeth, looking between him and the homicidal cohort gaining on us, "can we continue this lovely little conversation—_after_ we escape your fan club from hell?"

"My 'fan club'—?"

"Yes, your fan club, you imbecile!"I exploded, unable to take his bewildered looks for a second longer. "And if you don't get us both out of here in the next three seconds, you're going to be fathering enough grandchildren to last you well more than just one lifetime! So if you please, on my soul, Mamoru-baka, _pick_ _me_—"

My flailing feet suddenly waved good-bye to the ground as Mamoru bent over and scooped me roughly back into his arms.

"Pick you up? Yeah, I got that part," he cut in, heaving me more securely into his arms and breaking into a full-out sprint again. "But you have a lot of explaining to do when we _do_ get to a safe place, Odango," he added under his breath, refusing to look at me but glowering nonetheless.

That "safe place," as I later discovered, was none other than Mamoru-baka's apartment.

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I stared at the oversized lump of parasitic gauze festering on my foot. "Uh, thanks. For…for…"

Mummifying my foot. Turning it into King Tut's long-lost tomb mate. Preparing my extremities for an intense process of burial which involves—

"For, er…that."

And I pointed at my foot.

"Don't worry about it," Mamoru replied, either missing or choosing not to catch the skepticism that colored my tone. Judging by the awkward look on his face, it was probably the latter.

On the bright side, my sprained ankle couldn't have been in better hands. On the other hand (and this seemed much more persuasive than the so-called "bright side"), I didn't need an M.D. to know that my sanity had suffered a steady decline since we first stepped foot into this room. Did I say step? I meant burst-through-the-door-in-full-panic-mode-with-knives-at-our-heels into this room. And you wondered why things got awkward!

But I'm rambling. Although, truth be told, I think Mamoru was doing enough rambling for both of us at this point. Don't believe me? Listen for yourself!

"Let me know if your ice hurts still," Mamoru was saying as he fumbled with the ice pack again. "I'm just going to adjust your ankle, and—I mean, your…your ice pack, and if your ankle still hurts…"

I shot him a look that plainly questioned his sanity, but he was too busy muttering to my toes. "My ice pack—I mean, my ankle will be fine. Really."

We both looked away and exhaled at the same time. I made a face at the spotless couch back.

At some point, it must have occurred to Mamoru that if he dug himself any deeper he would drill straight into the antechambers of Hell, because right after he ducked his head to keep me from seeing his flaming-red face (which only a colorblind animal could have missed), he gave my bandages one final tug and stepped back, looking completely mortified at the silence lingering between us.

At least, I assumed that it was the silence which had pasted that expression onto his face. Or maybe my feet just smelled.

Mortification stampeded across my face, too.

"Okay, that should do it," he repeated, leaning just far away enough from me to make me feel like I had the bubonic plague. "Er…it doesn't still hurt, does it?" he added quickly, shooting my ankle a guilty glance—not that it really helped with the throbbing pain or anything.

"No, I'm fine," I lied, struggling to stamp out the remaining traces of a grimace from my face.

He must have noticed anyway because, when he spoke again, he sounded sheepish. Mamoru never sounds sheepish. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I guess what I meant was, 'Does it still hurt as much?' It'll probably hurt for a while, you sprained it pretty badly."

"It's better," I assured him.

"Oh. Good."

"It might've been even better if you hadn't dropped me, though."

Silence. A little bit more awkward this time around.

Okay, so sue me. The wounds were still fresh, so to speak, and I can hold a mean grudge.

While we sat there in our thriving social atmosphere, I snuck a peek out of the corner of my eye and saw Mamoru staring down a bowl of fruit sitting on the table. He looked like he expected it to burst into flames at any moment under the intensity of his stare. I stifled a giggle.

"Your centerpiece is…nice," I observed instead, to break the silence. Unfortunately, Mamoru had chosen the exact same moment to play the part of gracious host by blurting out, "Do you want anything to drink?"

I swear Mamoru keeps crickets hidden in his flowerpots. They were chirping so loudly I could have picked them out one by one just by the ruckus they were making.

Luckily, Fate decided that she couldn't stand our incurable gaucheness for another second because the grandfather clock suddenly bellowed behind us, summoning the dead from their graves. I jumped in my seat with a loud squeak of fright, and even Mamoru, who was still standing stiffly across the room, nearly toppled over in surprise. The clock continued to trumpet its canonical hour chime until it belched one final, tired-sounding stroke, and then lapsed back into a ringing silence.

I looked up just in time to see Mamoru's face split into a nervous grin.

"Motoki…tried to convince me to throw it out ages ago, you know," he chuckled, running a hand through his hair, "but I told him it would come in handy one day."

"Yeah, the day you realized the entire world had fallen in love with you," I scoffed, smiling in spite of myself. "And I'm sure Motoki was just being ignorant as usual when he didn't see _that_ day coming."

He laughed. "Good point. Do you want something to eat?" Mamoru added he turned towards the kitchen. "I can make us something."

"Only if you insist," I called after him.

He waved his hand to indicate that he had heard me and I leaned back in my seat, grinning. So he'd caught my bluff, after all!

While Mamoru was in the kitchen preparing snacks, I seized the opportunity to look around the room. The entire place—from the antique grandfather clock, which I now noticed sitting in the far corner of the room, right down to the seaweed floating in the goldfish tank—screamed cleanliness louder than a barrelful of Lysol. The only disgusting thing about the room was that it was nearly as tasteful as it was tidy. Bookshelves lined an entire wall from perfect ceiling to perfect floor, interrupted only by the occasional (and obviously expensive) vase or painting.

The opposite wall offered a view of an entirely different sort. Through the glass doors that led outside onto the balcony, the setting sun gilded the rooftops as far as the eye could see, as if someone had taken an enormous brush filled with paints of every imaginable hue and swept it over the entire city. Even the red roses on the balcony seemed revel in the fire that set them aglow. Everything seemed to sparkle at me, like jewels in a diamond mine.

I had to suppress a giggle as another thought occurred to me. Sparkling! Well, I knew something else that sparkled, and it wasn't diamonds…

'Let me guess,' a snide voice in my head snickered. 'Edward Cullen, the solar-powered blood-sucker.'

I opened my mouth to protest—then I realized what I was doing and clapped a hand to my mouth.

'I am _not_ having this conversation with you _now_,' I thought furiously to my thoughts, casting a quick glance around to make sure Mamoru wasn't coming. 'I really don't need another reason for Mamoru to think I'm borderline insane, thank you very much!'

'Yes, Chantiqua, please!' a second, unfamiliar voice sang, interrupting the train of thought-daggers I was still shooting at the first voice. 'If you haven't noticed, Usagi was having a moment here—or didn't you hear her waxing poetic with that "jewels in a diamond mine" line?'

"Oh, for goodness' sake," I exclaimed, exasperated. "The voices in my head have _names?_"

'Ask Penelope—it was _her_ idea.'

'Yes, well, you had plenty of names to choose from, so don't go begrudging me for your bad taste, _Chantiqua_ dearest.'

'I believe we were talking about Usagi's ability to enjoy literature—'

'—about a fictional vampire whose weakness happens to be underage girls instead of garlic.' Penelope snorted. 'Come on. He's not even real!'

'And we're both a figment of Usagi's imagination, and yet we're both here discussing it,' Chantiqua finished hotly. 'By the way, Usagi-chan, did I mention that I'm also Team Edward?'

"I give up." I threw up my hands in frustration. "Are _either_ one of you Team Sanity?"

'Edward, let me have your vampire babies! Oh, I'm sorry…were you saying something, Usagi?'

"Never mind…"

Penelope made a little tutting noise in the back of my mind. 'Might I suggest something?'

"What?" I snapped.

'Wipe off that slobber, dearie, before Mamoru walks in the room and thinks you're drooling over _him_. He's coming.'

"Oh." I paused. "Oh, ew, ew, ew!" I squealed as delayed reactions kicked in and I swatted at the invisible voices now cackling maniacally in my head. "That is _gross_, guys! Stop it! Mamoru's not—"

'Hot. Irresistible. Cute,' Penelope giggled inside my thoughts.

'Well, I have to admit, he _is_ pretty delicious-looking,' Chantiqua agreed.

"I'm warning you two—one more word and I'm kicking you both out of my head! For the last time, Mamoru is _not_—"

'Feisty. Unbelievably sexy—'

"Not what?" a third voice asked.

"Not unbelievably sex—_Agh!_ M-Mamoru-baka! What the hell are you doing _here?_"

"Silly me, I didn't realize you'd turned my living room into a private salon. I thought I was still allowed." Mamoru sat down next to me, a tray in his hands and a cheeky grin slapped on his face. Apparently it only took ten minutes alone in the kitchen (and maybe a too-thorough knowledge of the thoughts that had just been running through my mind) for him to regain some of his old confidence.

On second thought, scratch that. Nobody—well, except maybe Edward the Psychic himself—could have thought of a dialogue like that.

'Sexy,' Chantiqua whispered, ducking back into the recesses of my subconscious before I could shoot any more furious thought-daggers her way.

"Don't you have a fish tank to scrub or something?" I muttered, my face growing hot as I looked away.

Mamoru raised an eyebrow at me. "Whatever you say, Odango. Here, have a cookie."

"Excuse me?"

"A cookie." He thrust the tray he had brought with him at me. "You look flushed."

"And what's a cookie have to do with my temperature?" I demanded, the heat positively flooding my face as I snatched the proffered pastry from him.

Mamoru winked. "Well, that's because it comes with a cool glass of milk."

The drink appeared magically in my cookie-filled hands.

"Thath cheathing—oopsth," I mumbled, accidentally spraying Mamoru's shirt with bits of dairy-sodden decadent delight. I had to beat back the temptation to reach out and shove the crumbs back into my mouth. "Sorry," I apologized after I had gulped down my mouthful. "You may be a cheater, but these are amazing! Where did you get them?"

"I made them. I'll be sure to bring your compliments to the chef, though."

"Oh, you're so full of it!" I snorted, laughing as I reached for seconds. "You know, believe it or not," I said, nodding seriously as I took another bite, "I tried to make these once, too."

"Oh yeah? And what happened?"

"You remember that big fire in Osaka year before last?"

"Yeah. Why?"

I grinned. "That was me."

"Ah." Mamoru leaned back in his seat. "Well, that would explain why you suddenly started showing up in my life at about the same time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what better place for an arsonist escapee to hide than the bustling city of Tokyo?"

"Hey!" I threw my last bite at him and he ducked, laughing. "I resent that!"

"I bet your parents weren't too thrilled with the flambéd kitchen, either," he chuckled, toasting me with his glass of milk.

"Now listen here, baka, I'll have you know that—"

"I've been thinking," Mamoru interrupted suddenly. "Do you want to learn?"

"I—excuse me?"

"Learn. Learn to cook. Bake. That sort of stuff."

I stared at him. "You want to teach me how to cook," I said finally.

"That's what I'm saying."

"You want to teach _me_, Disaster-Magnet Usagi, how to cook."

He smiled. "Sure, why not?"

"Uh, well, in case you've forgotten, I'm the one whose 'killer cupcakes' actually killed Motoki's pet rat last summer, remember? Although, come to think of it, it might've been Minako's crème brulee that did him in…she kind of shoved it down his throat while it was still on fire…"

"Well, I don't know about rats," Mamoru chuckled, taking the now-cleared tray and carrying it into the kitchen. "I just figured that we might as well do something productive with our time as long as we're stuck here for God knows how long. You coming?"

"Yeah, as soon as the pair of wings that will whisk me away into the kitchen sprout out of my back," I muttered as I pushed myself up onto my good leg. "Okay, you've got this, Usagi…" I braced myself and swung my other leg over the edge of the couch, using the heavy ice pack for leverage.

I wish I had paid more attention in Physics, because then I might be able to explain why momentum actually takes the trouble to avoid basic laws of gravity in order to do me in. Instead of stopping at the floor, my leg soared straight into the air like a life-size pendulum, sending me sprawling spread-eagle back onto the couch again.

"Ugh…you wouldn't happen to have a spare set of crutches stashed away in a closet or anything, would you?" I groaned, rubbing my head. "I think walking is more dangerous than standing, and standing looks like a death sentence right about now."

I heard footsteps. Mamoru appeared in the kitchen doorway. He took one glance at me and had to fight to keep his face straight. Did a pretty shoddy job of it too, if I may say so myself. "Ah…yeah. Sorry. I forgot," he said, scratching the back of his head and smiling. "Are you…okay?"

"Perfect. I'm as peachy as a cobbler," I replied sarcastically, swinging my tangled legs back over the edge again. "Can you tell?"

Mamoru grinned. "Okay, you've been better, point taken…"

"Thank you."

"—so let me carry you."

"Wh-what?" I stammered, the heat rushing instantly to my face. "So you can break my other leg too? No thanks!"

"You'll break more than just another leg if I let you walk," Mamoru chortled, crouching down next to me so that our faces were at the same level. I swatted at him and he ducked. "Now if you let me carry you into the kitchen," he continued, still laughing, "you can still sit on the counter and watch. You don't need working legs to mix, do you?"

"D-don't be ridiculous! I'm not three years old, I don't need you to carry me!"

Mamoru shrugged. "Suit yourself, Odango. But you'll need to use the bathroom sooner or later, and if you haven't noticed, this isn't a hospital. I don't have crutches, and I certainly don't do bedpans, either."

"Oh, ew! That's gross, baka!"

"You're telling me—I just bought that sofa you're sitting on two weeks ago. So what do you say?" He grinned again. "Win-win?"

I gave him my most fierce look. "I say, if anybody ever hears about this, I'm not going to be the only one with broken bones."

"Perfect. So is that a yes?"

"Carry away," I grumbled.

Mamoru chuckled and made a little flourish with his hand. "Your wish is my command, milady. Your valet awaits." He bent down in front of me and I scrambled to clamber onto his back. After a few awkward attempts, I finally managed to loop my arms around his neck and then looked down at my legs, which were flopping uselessly every which way.

"Er…"

"Here," he said, offering me his arms. I swung my good leg through first, then my other leg. "Okay, ready?" he asked when I was finally settled.

I made a face. "Just go, baka."

"One trip to the devil's kitchen, coming up." He flashed me a quirky smile over his shoulder. "I'd hold on tight if I were you."

"Oh, move it already!"

My arms tightened instinctively around him and I gave him an extra jab with my good foot, just in case he got any wrong ideas. Stuck here or not, I wasn't giving in to his good guy act so easily, no matter how alluring I found it—not without a fight, anyway. I had at least decided that much.

When I felt that I had made my disdain for him sufficiently clear, I settled in for the short ride to the kitchen, only to find myself grinning like a fool into the back of his shirt. In spite of everything, I couldn't help but feel just a little bit relieved that Mamoru did not own a pair of crutches after all. This way was much, much better.

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I heard the water in the bathroom turn off and slammed my notebook shut, jamming the pen I had been writing with between the pages. I was just shoving everything back inside my bookbag when I heard footsteps in the hallway. I looked up and immediately wished I hadn't: Mamoru was leaning around the corner, standing there in all his wet-haired, post-shower glory.

Of course, with Mamoru, things either wow or they don't count. This glory was no different. It was better than finding the cure to cancer. It was better than winning the Nobel Peace Prize for saving dying puppies in Timbuktu. It was even better than the bumper stickers parents proudly parade on the back of their minivans in cheap, mass-produced lettering, "MY KID WAS STUDENT OF THE MONTH AT [a line to fill in the name of your school] ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!" (And for the record, whoever is in charge of choosing these students is clearly being paid off, because I never won even one of those stickers in all my eight years in elementary school! I'm kidding. Five. Okay, maybe six. Can we move on? I'd really rather not talk about it.)

This glory was…well, criminal.

"I'm all done, the bathroom's open if you want to take a shower," Mamoru said, slinging his towel over his shoulder. I watched, mesmerized, as the fleece fluttered over his modestly-damp undershirt and brushed the edge of his black pajama bottoms. It was the sexiest sleepwear I had seen since that time Minako dragged me into a sea of special-occasion teddies at Victoria's Secret. Heaven knows who _she_ was trying to impress.

"Uh…yeah, okay," I said, feeling a little bit dazed.

"I put a towel on the rack inside the door, and everything else should be in the shower already. And I thought you might want to change into something a bit more comfortable to sleep in, so as long you don't mind wearing my clothes…"

"Mind? I don't mind," I murmured, pushing myself to my feet.

"Okay, well, I left a t-shirt and a pair of shorts next to the sink, so if you want to…"

"Uh-huh, yeah…sure…"

"…Odango?"

"I told you not to call me that," I said automatically, before I blinked and realized that Mamoru was staring at me. We both looked down at my feet and I saw for the first time that they were planted on the floor. "Oh, look. I'm standing."

My legs wobbled dangerously beneath me even as I spoke.

"You should let me help you," Mamoru suggested, hurrying to my side. I obliged without protest, happily inhaling the lingering scent of his shampoo as he bent over and put my arm over his shoulder. He placed his other hand firmly around my waist. "Just go as slow as you need to," he told me. "I've got you."

I nodded and took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself. The first step was the hardest. As I quickly learned, I needed Mamoru's support more than I expected. My ankle didn't hurt nearly as badly as it had that afternoon (I had my extra-speedy healing powers as Sailor Moon to thank for that), but I still couldn't walk without feeling like I had incurred the wrath of a particularly vindictive cactus that was sticking out of my foot. I ended up half-hopping, half-launching myself off of Mamoru's arm all the way to the bathroom, fighting all the while to ignore the arm wrapped around my waist, which proved equally distracting, although for entirely different reasons.

In fact, it was probably a miracle that I made it all the way to the bathroom without once tripping, considering how intent I was on memorizing the feel of his strong shoulders supporting my arm, the slight dampness of his skin pressed against mine, the sound of his slippers clacking against the tiles of the……oh no…

"Damn," I cursed under my breath. How had we gotten to the bathroom so fast? I didn't even remember turning the corner into the hallway…

"What's wrong? Does your ankle hurt?" Mamoru asked, looking immediately concerned.

"It's nothing," I said quickly, scrambling to grab a hold of the sink before he could tighten his grip around my waist. What was wrong with me? I couldn't even trust myself to let him leave if he did that. "I'm fine, my ankle's fine. Thanks."

I felt Mamoru's suspicious gaze on me and turned away from him, pretending to examine the bathroom. "Well, it's good that you can at least stand on your own," he finally said, making sure that I could stand on my own before letting go of me. "I thought I was going to have to go in there and…"

"And what?" I asked, distracted. I had just spotted a black bottle of Mamoru's cologne sitting on the countertop. Essence of Chiba Mamoru, captured in that tiny little vial. It vaguely occurred to me that he might not miss it if I poured out a few drops to keep for myself…

"Never mind," he muttered, finally turning away. "Be careful. The floor's slippery," he added over his shoulder. He started to close the door.

"Mamoru?"

Mamoru whipped around so fast that he nearly knocked me over my less-than-stable feet. "Sorry. Yes?" he asked, reaching out his hand to steady me and, upon seeing that I was fine, quickly withdrawing it to his side again.

"I…" I fidgeted with my skirt, trying to find the right words. "I just wanted to say thank you," I finally blurted, relief washing over me when he didn't appear appalled by my playing peacemaker. "So…thanks. For everything."

"Oh. Yeah, sure, it's nothing."

"And if there's anything I can do…" I began.

Mamoru considered me for a moment. Then he shook his head and did the very last thing I would have expected from him at that moment: he laughed. "Yeah, there's something," he chuckled, the florescent lights dancing as he turned those deep blue eyes on me. "One little thing."

"Yes?" I swallowed hard, praying he couldn't hear the suddenly deafening pounding of my heart against my ribcage.

He grinned. "Just do me a favor and try not to klutz out in the shower, okay? This is probably the last place you want me to come barging in to save you. Trust me."

Then he spun around on his heel and headed out the door, still shaking his head, but this time I couldn't tell whether the gesture was meant more for me or himself. That, and the fact that I heard him mutter under his breath as he walked away down the hall, "The _very_ last place."

I shut the door behind him, feeling reasonably bemused. I looked around and realized that I was completely alone for the first time since the incident on the sidewalk outside of the arcade, which seemed like eons ago now. My waist still tingled from where his fingers had wrapped gently around it.

I undressed and got into the shower, content to just let the hot water wash away all of the confusing new emotions of the past three days. If anybody had told me seventy-two hours ago that I would be in Chiba "cold-hearted baka" Mamoru's apartment, taking a shower in his bathroom, cooking without burning anything down in his kitchen, and, above all, _enjoying_ myself—I would have told them without a second's hesitation that they were straight out of their minds.

Now I wasn't so sure anymore.

As I let the hot water run, I tried to find an explanation that would justify the transformation I had so recently undergone; because obviously, nothing short of a complete metamorphosis could explain how I had gone from hate to jealous to sincere to confused all at once in so short a time. I lathered, rinsed, and repeated three times. I scrubbed my body until my left foot ached from all the standing, but still no answer came to me. When I had been in the shower for so long that my skin had grown pruney, I finally reached for the towel hanging next to the shower and stepped onto the bathroom tiles, resigning myself to the thought that at least I didn't have to worry about my feet stinking anymore, when something glinting out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned to look.

It was the black bottle of cologne. I hadn't noticed it before, but now that the entire room was steamy from the running shower, the gold lettering on it seemed to glitter through the shroud like miniature rays of sunlight. I took a step closer.

At first, I couldn't explain to myself what it was about the glass bottle that drew me in or where I had seen it before. It looked like just another ordinary bottle of cologne—expensive, obviously, but manufactured by the company whose name was written near the bottom in more gold embossing: some "L'Essence de Lune" or other. When I looked more closely, however, I finally remembered what it was this bottle reminded me of: it looked exactly like my notebook, from the black binding and gold lettering, right down to that mystical feeling of being transported back in time when I was near it.

Mamoru's cologne and my notebook were connected. Mamoru and _I_ were connected.

That's when it finally hit me, what this entire time since the moment I had written those first fateful words in the notebook, what all of it amounted to. I liked Chiba Mamoru. I had liked him ever since I had met him. It was even possible that I loved him.

My foot slipped on the wet tiles as I took a staggered step backwards. The teal tile was suddenly rushing towards my face, and I screamed as I plummeted to the floor.

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I awoke to the voice of an angel.

"Usagi. Usagi, wake up."

The voice got softer, then louder again, like someone was fiddling with the volume dial inside my head. I groaned, refusing to open my eyes. Even the smallest movement sent a sharp pain searing through my head, as if somebody had taken a cleaver and spliced it wide open.

"I'm up," I mumbled, trying to lift my arms, which felt unusually sluggish this morning. The mattress felt a lot harder than I remembered, too.

I heard a low chuckle come from somewhere around my feet. Stupid cat.

"There's no alarm clock there, if that's what you're looking for," came the same satisfied voice from the doorway. "The closest thing that you could throw at me right now is the plunger, but I doubt your hands are coordinated enough to even pick up a pin at this point, let alone toilet cleaning products."

Toilet cleaning products? And what was a plunger doing in my bedroom? I squeezed my eyes tightly shut until little lights danced in them. Shingo. Of course! Ooh, he was in big trouble…

"Come on, Odango. You've been lying here so long you're starting to rust, and I just got these tiles replaced last month. Get up."

"Five more minutes, Luna…" I pawed at my sheets so that I could pull them over my head like I usually did, but apparently the feline had had enough sense to pull them off the bed today. "And don't…don't call me that…" I whined, throwing my hand dramatically over my eyes. "You're starting to sound like Mam…Mamoru-baka…"

That's when everything suddenly clicked, like the stubborn peanut butter jar lid that won't open until you finally give up and hand it to somebody else, then it pops right open. One little twist, and it all just snapped into place. I wasn't in bed at home. Shingo wasn't going to die at my hands—not tonight, anyway. And that definitely wasn't the voice of an angel!

"Welcome back to reality, Odango," the devil quipped.

I opened my eyes. I was lying sprawled uncomfortably on Mamoru's bathroom floor, my legs crammed in the space between the wall and the open door. Through the narrow opening, I could barely make out what appeared to be a white shirt floating in the hallway. The door, on the other hand, had clearly taken a turn for the worse: it looked like it had been kicked straight off its hinges and crammed hastily back into its no-longer-a-fit frame. I could see bits of chipped paint and (were those really from the door?) wood splinters littering the threshold. The shirt, I realized, belonged to Mamoru. He was sitting in the doorway, his face staring directly at the opposite wall.

"I…what time is it?" I asked groggily, trying to push myself up into a sitting position.

"9:30. You've been out for about half an hour."

Half an hour! Sarcasm, spurred on by irritation, shifted quickly from zero into overdrive. "By all means, take your time waking me—I was just being introduced to the grout under your sink."

"Then you'll be there for quite a while, considering as there wasn't any the last time I checked."

"Don't _rush_ to help me or anything," I added pointedly, now glaring at the back of Mamoru's head through the ill-fitted doorway.

"I'll promise to 'rush' to your aid—"

"Thank you."

"—when you've decided to put on some clothes."

There was a pronounced silence, in which I stared Mamoru's back and Mamoru continued to face the opposite wall. Then I took a quick glance down, saw exactly what I dreaded seeing, and let a colorful expletive explode from my lips.

"Shit!" I wrenched the towel I had wrapped around my body higher up, thankful that I had at least had enough foresight to cover myself before deciding to knock myself out. I didn't care how many naked women that man was going to see in his entire medical career; I didn't even care if it was his lifetime aspiration to become a gynecologist—he was _not_ about to come in here seeing me like this!

I could practically hear Mamoru roll his eyes at the ceiling as he read my thoughts. "I didn't see anything, if that's what you're worried about."

"Worried! Why would I be worried?" I screeched, sounding hysterical. Clothes! Where were the clothes?

"The t-shirt's on the counter next to the sink."

"Yes, I knew that," I snapped, snatching the shirt off the counter and pulling it over my flaming hot face. I reached over for the shorts and jumped out of the way just in time to avoid being impaled in the foot by a meter-long splinter of wood. "Jesus! What in the world happened to the door?" I demanded, grabbing the shorts.

There was a pause from the doorway. "I…kicked it."

"Yes, and I'm Michael Jackson," I said, rolling my eyes. "Trust me, you couldn't do this much damage if you were Tuxedo Kamen himself—" And I know first-hand what he's capable of. "What happened?"

When Mamoru spoke again, his voice sounded oddly subdued. "I told you, I kicked it down when I heard you scream. I thought you were being…attacked."

"Attacked?"

I heard a sigh. "Yes, attacked." Mamoru made as if to face me and I growled in warning as I hastily dragged on the shorts. "Don't you wonder why nothing's happened yet?" he asked, holding his hands up as he turned around to show me that he still wanted to keep all of his limbs intact. "Why nobody's come after us?"

I stopped tugging at the shorts. The idea _had_ occurred to me, of course, but between the homicidal women and being knocked out of commission, I honestly hadn't had much time to think about it.

"Well, yeah…" I mused as I finally managed to get both feet through the right holes. "But I mean, why would they follow us here? It's not as if they know where you live, right?"

Mamoru chuckled. "Only you, Odango, could be carried straight to the foot of my apartment building and not know where we were."

"Hey!" I protested, picking up a large flake of door paint and throwing it at the back of his head. It bounced harmlessly off, to my chagrin. "How was I supposed to know where you were taking me?"

"Right, because I frequent _so_ many places that look like apartment complexes."

"Well, maybe I thought you were being smart and leading the masses away from your apartment, then we'd be safe here and wouldn't have to worry about them following us!"

"Hm. Maybe." I saw Mamoru lean his head back against the door frame. "I'm just sorry you got dragged into all of this," he said after a pause.

"Into what?" I asked, confused.

"This…this whole fiasco. I know it doesn't have anything to do with you. You wouldn't even have been here if it wasn't for me. I'm just sorry you had to be stuck in the middle of it."

I raised my eyebrows incredulously at his turned back. He was sorry that _I_ had nothing to do with this? Uh, hello! I was female and still sane, wasn't I? Of course I had something to do with this! Surely there was some point to my not having been converted into one of the mob, right? In fact, I was the only girl in all of Tokyo who wasn't completely gaga over him! I was born to live this adventure out to its fullest! I was independent! I was confident! I was…I was…

Oh, shoot. I was in love with him.

"Anyway, I just want you to know that I'm…well, I'm glad you're here," Mamoru was saying, leaning his head against the door frame again. "It's good to know that I have at least one person who won't go completely berserk on me, you know what I mean?"

"Um…yeah, about that, Mamoru…" I began nervously, fiddling with the bottle of cologne sitting on the counter again. "There's something I should probably—"

"Usagi!" Mamoru interrupted suddenly, his voice sharper than I had ever heard it before. He whirled around, instantly on his feet in a low crouch, and I looked up at his face for the first time since I had regained consciousness: it had gone completely rigid.

"Don't move unless I tell you to," he ordered in the same hoarse voice, moving silently behind me. "Listen…"

I fought to stay completely still as we both fell silent, listening for something I could not detect. My senses as Sailor Moon told me there was no danger nearby, but something was telling Mamoru otherwise…

A voice suddenly rent the silence.

"SHABON SPRAY!"

"_Duck!_" Mamoru shouted.

A hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed me, thrusting me backwards into the hallway. Without warning, the entire back wall of the bathroom exploded, sending chunks of debris flying straight at us. I started to move, but Mamoru was quicker; he threw his arm in front of me, I ducked, and suddenly there was a pile of rubble at his feet where there had been a flying boulder the size of my head only moments before.

"H-How…?" I asked, gaping at Mamoru. "H-how did you…?"

I didn't get a chance to finish my question. Mamoru's eyes met mine and I stood there, rooted to the spot. An earthquake couldn't have shaken me from his hold as his eyes searched my face, as if for some sign of confirmation. I never found out if he found what he was looking for, because just then, and just as abruptly as before, he reached out and pushed me behind him, keeping one hand tightly around my wrist.

"Who's there?" he called.

I stood on my toes and peered around his shoulder. The cloud of dust from the explosion had mostly settled. And through the debris, I saw…

"_Sailor Mercury?_"

I turned quickly to look at Mamoru and met his equally stunned gaze. Apparently mine hadn't been the only voice to voice that thought out loud.

But there was no time to think. I wrenched my gaze from him and turned to face the intruder again. If she was here, that meant…

"Mamoru, get out of here," I whispered.

He whipped around to face me at once. "What? Are you crazy? She's—"

"Trust me, Mamoru, I don't have time to explain—"

The sound of a heel clicking against the tile floors forced us to both turn around. Sailor Mercury was standing there, a coy smile that did not reach her eyes playing around her lips.

"Hello, Mamoru," she said, her blue eyes glinting coldly under the florescent lighting. "I'm here to take Usagi-chan away. Usagi-chan, prepare to die."

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End of Chapter 3

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Hi again, guys! Thanks for all of you who stuck it out with me this far—I hope it was enjoyable! And again, I'm super-sorry for the delay, but I do hope it was worth it!

Thanks to all of the readers who have encouraged me time and time again to keep writing, especially after all of the roadblocks I've come up against—but I can't believe this chapter is finally here! The final two chapters will be out before the end of the year (only two more! Where did the time fly to?), and I already have some drafts written up for them, so hopefully they'll be up sooner than this!

Please let me know what you thought! Reviews and critiques are appreciated!

From this side of the writing board, Ala Verity


	5. Chapter 4

Hello, and welcome back one and all to the next installment of "Notebooks, Not Love Notes!" The audience cue cards have been raised just in time for this show to get started, and this one says "APPLAUSE!"

Of course, you might be thinking, "What prompted this incredibly unexpected timeliness in posting this next chapter? Have the half-year delays been permanently excommunicated?"

The answer is: hopefully! And hopefully because I had such a fun and (relatively) smooth time writing this next chapter, it will be that much more enjoyable for you to read.

So thank you as always to everyone who left their lovely feedback, including threats of police intervention (thanks, colettecarter!), potential bribery (thanks, Alicia!), and suggestions for a yuri Ami-Usagi fic (uhh, thanks everybody who mentioned it?). But it's not yuri, you'll see! This is very much a Usagi-Mamoru fic (but please tell me I didn't actually spoil anything for anyone!).

So enough blabbering. Read ahead! And enjoy!

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Notebooks, Not Love Notes

Ala Verity

Chapter 4

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I stared at the crazy Sailor Senshi standing in the middle of Mamoru's bathroom, which looked like the site of the final battle from Independence Day.

The truth was, I was not prepared to die. Not now. Not here. And especially not at the hands of a sixteen-year old girl who wore granny panties and still called me "Usagi-chan."

Ignoring Mamoru's protests, I took a deep breath and stepped forward, stopping just inside the crumbling doorway. If something was going to be done about this situation, it was now or never.

"I want—"

"What?" Sailor Mercury snapped at once, staring me down with eyes that bored into my mind like drills. "What do you want? Say it now, or your body and your incompetent excuse for a brain will be severed from one another before you can say 'hot fudge sundae.'"

"No heroics," I squeaked. "Got it."

As much as I felt like a cowardly lion, though, I knew I had to try. For Mamoru's sake. So that still left the million-dollar question: What _did_ I want?

A dozen answers instantly sprang into my mind, some unlikely to keep my brain stem attached to my spinal cord if ventured, others simply begging for my head to be chopped off.

A hot fudge sundae!

World peace!

To save the whales!

Tuxedo Kamen!

Senshi uniforms made out of cotton instead of spandex!

Tuxedo Kamen _eating_ a hot fudge sundae!

Free chocolate booths in front of every public institution!

Tuxedo Kamen _dressed_ as a hot fudge sundae and _feeding _me one at the same time! Yes!

"Odango?" Mamoru's concerned voice cut through all the chanting "I-wants" hoo-haa-haa-ing around inside my head, to whose ranks a dancing hot fudge Tuxedo Kamen had just been admitted. "…Odango, are you all right?"

I shook my head, the image of a chocolate bar dressed in spandex riding a whale still branded vividly in my mind's eye. I had to say something. Come on! Say something!

"I want…"

Anything!

"A hot fudge sundae," I blurted.

…Okay, maybe not _anything_.

Something thudded softly against my shoulder. I realized that Mamoru's jaw had actually dropped open onto it, wide enough to shove my entire size 7W foot into. "Do you _want_ to die?" Mamoru asked behind me, his voice hoarse.

I assumed that his question was rhetorical and ignored it.

While I tried not to imagine what my head would look like dangling from the sinews of my neck, my eyes darted around the room, frantically searching for a way out of this mess I had inadvertently created. I caught Sailor Mercury's fierce gaze and quickly looked away. I saw the broken sink. Up. The ceiling half blown off. Mamoru standing right behind me. Sailor Mercury, murderous. Cracked marble. Mamoru. Puddle. Mercury. Smashed cologne bottle on the floor. Mamoru…

"No, no, I just want…" I whimpered, stepping hastily away from Sailor Mercury's murderous gaze. Without warning, my foot snagged on a huge block of rubble.

"Watch out!"

"Agh!"

A pair of strong hands caught me roughly from behind, jerking me abruptly to a halt. A few flakes of paint drifted lazily down from the crumbling door frame.

"Good one…" I heard Mamoru mutter behind me as he hefted me to my feet again.

By the time I had regained my balance, Ami's furious eyes were ogling at Mamoru's hand on my waist so intensely that I was surprised nothing caught fire. I had not seen Ami look this angry since the time the school cancelled end-of-year exams because some idiot left a Bunsen burner on and burned down the entire chemistry department. And she had definitely _not_ been a happy camper that time.

"Get away from him, Usagi-chan," she hissed. The same death glare from that fateful day when Araki Hiroshi was found frozen like an icicle to the biology department roof now glinted in her eyes again. "I'm warning you…"

"You're not taking her anywhere," Mamoru growled back before I could answer. To my dismay, he proceeded to push me behind him with one hand, ignoring my furious protests at being treated like a child. "You're not taking anybody anywhere without going through me first."

"Mamoru-baka, don't be stupid, she's Sailor Mercury—"

"I think I can handle this, thanks," he replied in a loud voice, not bothering to turn around.

"And I think that _I_, of all people, should know what I'm talking about for once," I retorted in an even louder voice. I turned to Sailor Mercury and added, "Right, Ami?"

"Well, technically, I believe that the extent of our relations with one another counterbalanced by the negative force of your inherent stupidity—"

"Hang on a sec—" Mamoru began.

"Don't interrupt, baka," I snapped, rolling up my sleeves. "She just called me stupid and she's about to pay for it—"

"What are you going to do," she jeered, "throw soap suds at me?"

"No better than _you_, Miss Shabon Spray—"

"_Hold on just one second!"_ Mamoru roared.

"_What?_"

"Odango," Mamoru said, breathing very heavily. "Did you just call Sailor Mercury by her real name?"

Oh. Had I?

_'Right, Ami?'_

Oops.

"N-no, I don't—" I stammered, flustered. Know her? _Know _her? How could I know her? Unless you counted having sleepovers at each other's houses every night for an entire summer and fighting crime together "knowing" a person, then maybe we knew each other a little bit…but don't be ridiculous, Mamoru-baka, of course I don't know her!

"Odango," Mamoru repeated, giving me that stern no-nonsense-now look that my dad uses whenever we talk about topics like boys or prom—which, to be honest, I try to limit to once every few decades or so. "You have some serious explaining to do."

"Uh…"

No, wait! What was that rule about getting yourself out of sticky situations again?

'When in doubt, look about!' Yes, that was it!

Or was it 'When you're stuck, punch him in the face and run'?

Whatever.

Distractions!

My eyes darted around the bathroom, searching for a way out. Past the leaky sink, beyond the pile of rubble on the floor, and…

My eyes landed on Sailor Mercury.

Aha! How could I forget? Abashed, but nevertheless homicidal Sailor Senshi at eleven o' clock!

Here goes nothing… except maybe what little was left of my pride out the window, but who cared about that at a critical moment like this?

"Oh, Mamoru! I'm so _scared!_" I wailed, shifting from deep-doo-doo mode into damsel-in-distress overdrive. And I practically threw myself into his open arms.

Try thinking about the identities of Sailor Senshi when you have _this_ to deal with, Mamoru!

"Nice try, Odango. How do you know Sailor Mercury?"

Oh, shoot. Um…so much for that plan.

I stuck out my lip and made sure it trembled just _so_ before raising my biggest doe eyes very slowly up to meet his. Little did he know, I had every advantage from this angle; my eyes looked ten times bigger, and I looked that much smaller.

That much frailer.

That much more…_in need._

And if there was one thing I knew about Chiba Mamoru, it was that he is an amazing sucker for women 'in need.'

"Shit," I heard him mutter under his breath, staring down at me like I was one of those cute mutant birds from the movie Enchanted. I swear I heard his heart stop for a moment under my hands, which were now clinging tightly to his shirt. Unbeknownst to him (or maybe he knew it, and just could not do a damn thing about it), I was using the precise position of these hands to send a very clear message:

_Look at me, I'm so helpless…so please, help me already!_

And he was ready to be convinced, I could tell. He was melting. Like putty in my hands.

"Mamoru…" I whimpered, burying my head in his chest again so that he could not notice the lack of genuine tears welling up in my eyes. "I'm sorry I can't be stronger…but…" A little hiccup for effect, "I'm…I'm scared…"

I was, in fact, experiencing a particularly strong emotion at the moment, but none that Mamoru might have suspected, unless he suspected me of enjoying myself quite thoroughly (which I doubted).

Regardless of what I was actually going through, however, Mamoru was still a man, and I was still a girl. And girls needed comforting. At least, I am assuming this is the line of reasoning Mamoru followed, because he came to the exact same conclusion that I hoped he would come to.

"Okay…it's okay…" he murmured at last, reaching out tentatively with his hand and using it to stroke my hair in what he obviously considered a proper "soothing" fashion. "That's all right… Everything's going to be fine…"

I gloated. What else could I do? He was too busy comforting me to actually see me and I had managed to achieve my goal, which was to make him forget all about this identity business. Plus, his hand felt unusually good when he was busy running it up and down my back like that. And despite the fact that I felt a teensy-weensy, little _tiny_ bit bad for taking advantage of the situation like this—hey, I was in love.

And all's fair in love and war, right?

"_Eeeeeeeeee—!"_

Sigh. No, I guess that _would_ be too much to ask for.

We looked up from our intimate embrace, startled (although to be honest, I was feeling more disgruntled than anything else), to see Mercury rising from the clouds of dust in a very melodramatic fashion. Silhouette, battle theme music, even her element gushing out in large volumes behind her from the showerhead, which had sprung a big leak. That girl always did know how to make an entrance.

"Get…_away_ from him," she snarled in a low voice. Angry jets of water flew from her fingertips with every step she took forward, her eyes flashing. "I said, _stop touching him!_"

I rolled my eyes at her, ignoring the something warm which brushed against my hand as I planted it impatiently on my hip. "Oh, please! As if I would even want…"

I paused. Something warm?

I looked down.

A strong arm around my waist.

"—as if I would even want…"

Hand in my hair.

"…want to…"

Now stroking my back.

"…to touch…"

And I was pressed up against…against…the lower part of his…

Ho boy.

"GAH!" I screeched, blushing and jumping out of Mamoru's arms faster than if I had found myself cuddling that Kunzite guy with the greasy hair. Modesty, Usagi! Modesty! "What do you think you're _doing, _Mamoru-baka?"

Or blame. Blame works too.

"What am _I_ doing?" demanded Mamoru, who forgot everything else faster than that Dory tang fish from _Finding Nemo_ with ADHD or whatever it was she had. "What do you think_ you're_ doing? You're the one who initiated this…this _contact_!" he finished, his face turning slightly pink.

Initiated? Ha! I practically _threw_ myself at him! Although that probably was not the best point to bring up at this point.

Instead I poked him in the chest, hard. "_Me?_ Initiate contact with _you_, baka? In your dreams! Who's the one taking advantage of a poor girl in need?"

"Advantage!" Mamoru took a step forward and I retreated quickly, stumbling into the door frame. My eyes widened and I felt fear for the first time as he advanced menacingly on me. Trapped. "Is that what you think I'm doing, you idiot? You think I'm trying to take _advantage_ of you?"

"I…I _know_ it is!"

"Oh yeah, is that right?" he growled. "So what do you think it would be if I did _this_?"

He slammed both hands hard against the door frame on either side of my head.

Small chips of wood began falling around us like sharpened snowflakes.

"Y-you're crazy!" I squeaked, squirming under him, but he kept his arms tightly on either side of me so that I could not escape. "Wh-what do you think you're…?"

"Usagi-chan, _get away from_—"

"SHUT UP!" we both roared at the same time. Sailor Mercury fell silent.

Mamoru turned to face me again. He was breathing very heavily. "Now you…you…" I saw his jaw tightly clenched. "You just stay very still. Understand?"

I swallowed hard, nodding. I could not keep my eyes off of his face, which was mere centimeters from mine. He paused, and his gaze unexpectedly softened.

"Baka Odango…" he whispered, leaning in.

"SH-SHABON SPRAY!"

A freezing blast of ice rushed past us, knocking us the wind out of me and both off of our feet. Mamoru's reflexes were faster than mine; his hand shot out in midair and grabbed me, twisting us both so that he was underneath me as we slammed into the hardwood floor.

"SHABON SPRAY!" I heard Mercury shriek again.

Another storm of hail and ice whipped past us. This time I felt all of my limbs go instantly stiff, as if my entire body had turned into a giant piece of cardboard. It occurred to me too late that Sailor Mercury, unable to stand another minute of our demented argument, had finally snapped and frozen us both. Poor Mercury. Really, she has so much pressure!

And speaking of pressure…

"Geez, you're heavy, Odango," a voice groaned from underneath me.

"Oh, shut up," I snapped irritably, blushing. I could still feel Mamoru's arms wrapped tightly around me, frozen in the exact same position they had been in when we crash-landed in the hallway. What was worse, the attack had found us squashed together tighter than a pickle-and-ham sandwich, with the result being that if I even so much as tried to turn my head the other way, I would probably find myself staring right up Mamoru's left nostril.

I heard Mamoru exhale noisily—through said left nostril, no doubt. "I can't believe this is happening."

"You're telling _me_," I complained, keeping my eyes fixed on the far end of the hall. "I didn't ask for this either, you know!"

I felt Mamoru shift slightly underneath me before he went completely still. Then he muttered under his breath, more to himself than to me, I think, "With all the things you've been doing to me lately, I don't know _what_ you're asking for any more."

"That I've—that _I've_—what have I…I don't know what you're…that's not…!" I sputtered. What I was doing to him? This was _his_ fault!

"Well, at least there's one thing we don't have to worry about," he continued in the same moody voice.

"Yeah?" I replied hotly. "And what's that?"

"Body heat."

"Bod—WHAT?" I screeched, forgetting everything and whirling on Mamoru. I realized too late that I should have exercised some caution.

BAM! My forehead collided with his nose, causing a spectacular display of fireworks to bloom in my vision. Oh, what pretty lights!

"Ow, my head…"

"My nose…" Mamoru rasped in a hoarse voice of disbelief, squeezing his eyes tightly shut in pain. "I can't believe it! You broke my nose, Odango!"

"Well, you broke my leg!" I shot back, not missing a single beat.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?"

"Idiot! I'll show you an idiot, you…!"

Mamoru made a face. "You couldn't show a first-grader how to add if you wanted to, no-brain Odango."

"Oooh, you… Hard-headed baka!"

"Who has a hard head? You just broke my nose!"

"Will you both just shut up?" Mercury growled, marching over to us.

"NO!"

"SHABON SPRAY!"

'Baka,' I mouthed at Mamoru as the ice froze over our heads and we were both dragged into the living room by a very annoyed Senshi.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

All I have to say about it is, it was very cold indeed.

I felt like one of those Icelandic cavemen that people dug up after being buried under centuries of snowstorms. Assuming there was even this much ice in Iceland. Or maybe it was Greenland that was icy. It was hard to remember underneath all this frost.

Brain freeze, that's what it was.

My brilliant humor quickly melted (pardon the pun) to soberness when I saw our four self-proclaimed captors saunter back into the living room from the kitchen, where they had been finishing off the rest of Mamoru's amazing cookies. I had long since given up pining for one; the drool kept freezing mid-drip, dangling from my lower lip like a slobber icicle. Plus, Mamoru kept sniggering derisively at me each time it happened, which was annoying.

"So what should we do with them?" somebody asked. I looked up, listening carefully through the thick barrier of ice that separated Mamoru and me from the Senshi.

"We should kill the girl first." Sailor Venus, who was usually the last to catch on to anything, looked extremely proud at being the first to voice the idea. I felt hurt, partly because I had always considered Minako my closest friend of all the Senshi, but mostly because I was of the personal opinion that her idea was a stupid one.

There was a general murmur of assent in which I did not participate.

"I agree," Mercury piped up, not one to be outdone. "She's a prodigally nonsensical harebrained nuisance."

Leave it to Ami-chan to make it sound like I possessed some deadly contagious disease that would justify killing me.

"Did you know that she still owes me money for that giant chocolate bunny I bought for her at the mall last Easter?"

Disgruntled mutters swept through the circle of Senshi surrounding us, and I, trapped pitifully inside my prison of ice, cringed. Talk about holding a grudge! I didn't think Mako-chan would still remember that one.

"Come to think of it," Sailor Mars mused, casting a disdainful glance at me, "she never paid me back for that super-size sundae from the Crown, either."

I tried to look innocent. Bunnies! Where were the bunnies when you needed them?

"Or that video recorder she tripped over and broke in the cam store."

Oops.

"Or the Sailor Moon fan club kit from Otaku World."

Ah…yeah, that…

"And the life-size gingerbread house she just _had_ to have at the Santa booth during Christmas…"

Hey, that one was a gift!

"…Didn't that cute elf guy who worked there steal it for her?"

Thank you, Venus!

"Oh yeah, well, still…"

"Stealing is a cardinal sin," Mercury pointed out. "The punishment is death by hanging."

I cursed silently.

I was so intent on their conversation (and believe me, you would be too if you had to listen to your four best friends—well, ex-best friends—discuss how best to murder you), it was a long time before I realized that Mamoru had been jabbing me in the back with his finger for the past two minutes.

'What?' I snapped, wrenching my eyes away from the four girls, who were now squabbling over my belongings. I was immediately met with Mamoru's scorching glare.

I was surprised the ice around us did not simply melt away under the intensity of it.

'Took you long enough, Odango,' he mouthed, rolling his eyes at me.

'What do you want?' I snarled silently, not eager to miss any more of the conversation than I already had. And did I just hear Sailor Mars call dibs on my entire manga collection?

Mamoru mouthed something that I could not read.

'What?'

He mouthed it again. I frowned and moved my head a centimeter to each side to indicate that I did not understand. His brows knitted together, and he mouthed the same phrase, his lips moving more slowly this time.

_I have a bland._

What in the world was that supposed to mean?

'A 'bland?'" I mouthed back at him.

He shook his head and tried again.

'A…'pan'?'

He squeezed his eyes shut, made little shaking motions with his head, and mouthed it again.

'A…a what?'

'A PLAN!" he mouthed angrily at me.

'Oh. Well, why didn't you just say so?'

He clenched his jaw tightly. 'Just follow my lee.'

'What?'

'_Follow my lead_!'

'Oh. Okay. Grouch.'

We heard more voices, followed by the muffled clicking of heels on plush carpet. Mamoru and I rolled our eyeballs upwards at the same time to see the four Senshi towering over us, all wearing the same stupid smug look on their faces and…

The nerve! They were wearing my jewelry!

"Well, well, well," Mars smirked, flaunting my favorite gem-studded heart bracelet as she swept her long hair over her shoulder. That girl always did know how to push my buttons. "Look what the ice monster dragged in!"

I glared balefully at her.

"And _you_, Mamoru-san," she purred, unaffected by all of the silent curses I was now throwing her way (including a wart-inducing hex and an incurable case of ugly). She fluttered her eyelashes at Mamoru. "Don't worry, we'll let you out of the terrible beasty's clutches soon, baby."

At the word 'baby,' I made a face, which promptly froze due to the cold, but it was at least safer than throwing up, because then _that_ might freeze and I would be stuck with a giant vomit-popsicle sticking out of my mouth. And somehow I figured that if I did that, Mamoru might actually wet himself laughing, and I did not want to be stuck in an oversized ice cube with puddles of frozen puke and urine for God knew how long.

All of these brilliant speculations on my part, however, went completely unnoticed by everyone but myself, so I settled instead for stealing a quick glance at Mamoru, who would doubtless be revolted by Mars' mushy nickname.

What I did not expect to see was him gazing up at her, looking as unfazed as if she was merely asking him for a pleasant chat over coffee, which I highly doubted was in any part of her "plans" with him. I raised my frosty eyebrows a centimeter or so, impressed.

He had more balls than I gave him credit for after all. Well, at least Mars would be pleased.

And oh God, did I really just think that?

"How you doing in there, Usagi-chan?" the dragon queen cooed, tapping one flaming red over-manicured nail against the ice. "Defrosting, are we?"

While she continued tapping on the ice like one of those fat kids at the zoo that the snake wants to sink its fangs into and gobble up (at least that was how I felt at the moment), I wondered if it was true that men were more likely to get aroused when it was cold. Then I wondered where I had even heard that stupid rumor from, and mouthed something totally inappropriate at Mars so that I would stop thinking about it.

"Oh?" The raven-haired Senshi quirked an eyebrow at me, uncharacteristically unaffected by my rudeness. "Well, let's see how you like it when I heat things up in there, shall we?"

What about heat? Did heat make men more likely to—

"FIRE SOUL!"

At first, I could only feel the area around my head growing warmer, as if someone had focused a heat lamp on it and forgotten to turn it off. Then suddenly, without warning, there was a flash of heat and the sensation of the flesh being melted from my scalp burst through my entire head, ending all thought and shooting like thousands of tiny needles through my neck and spine. And then it hit me.

My head was on fire.

Sailor Mars was trying to kill me.

My neck jerked in uncontrollable little spasms, fighting to escape the burning ashes that bit and tore at my skin like a swarm of crude parasites. I could feel the ice around my head melting fast, the little droplets of water evaporating as quickly as they came.

"_Stop!" _someone shouted._ "Stop it!_"

My whole body writhed and twisted in agony under me, but I could not move. I screamed. No sound came out of my mouth. My head felt like somebody had stuffed it in an oven and shut the door behind me…

"_What the hell are you doing? Stop!"_

My eyes rolled up into the back of my head. I couldn't see… I couldn't feel… my flesh was melting…

"_God dammit, you're going to kill her!"_

The burning suddenly stopped.

No pain. No more screaming. Just…gone.

I heard somebody say something to me, and the next thing I knew was that relief was washing over me and I could feel the cool air rushing in again. My seized-up muscles relaxed and I slumped over, gulping down the air.

My eyes remained closed as I let the ice suck away the recent memories of pain from my mind. I could hear voices. Angry voices. Shouting. My head hurt.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" I heard somebody yell.

More voices arguing. I recognized that voice. Where had I heard it before?

"—could have killed her—"

…That one…

"—you could have killed Usagi—"

…Mamoru?"

"—Usagi—"

But Mamoru never called me by my name. He probably didn't even know my real name…

"And what does it matter to you if we kill her?" I heard somebody—Mars—reply in a scathing voice.

The man's tone was sharp. "What does it matter? Of course it matters to me if you kill her!"

"But…you hate her!" Sailor Mercury blurted.

Yes, that was right. The thoughts came swimmingly to my hazy mind. He hated me. What did it matter to him if I died?

There was a long pause in which I thought I heard somebody exhale sharply.

"I don't…hate her," the Mamoru would-be voice finally said.

"But you always say—"

"I know what I say to her, all right?" the same man interrupted, sounding fierce. He paused again, and when he spoke, his voice was much softer—pleading, almost. "I know what I say, but I need you to listen to what I'm saying right now. I don't hate Usagi. I…I care about her. Whatever you have to sort out is between you girls and me, so you can just…forget about trying to hurt her anymore. Please."

For the first time since Mars' attack, my mind started to register the words I was hearing. It wasn't somebody else's voice; no, it was definitely Mamoru's voice. I could visualize the scene in my head: Mamoru still stuck in the block of ice, defending me with determination; Mars looking disbelieving, Mercury and Venus puzzled, Sailor Jupiter flippant, or maybe she was as confused as I was, too.

And then it hit me: these impossible words that I had been hearing were coming from Mamoru's lips. _He_ was saying them. He was speaking them.

As if he cared.

As if I mattered.

As if he was…actually…

"Bullshit," I muttered.

"What?"

I struggled to open my eyes. "Bullshit," I said again, fixing my gaze steadily on Mamoru, who stared at me with an uncomprehending expression on his face. I noticed offhandedly that his right cheek looked rawer and redder than usual, as if someone had dragged something very rough across it.

"What's bullshit?" Jupiter inquired, looking curiously around at the others. Confused, after all. "Does anyone know what she's talking about?"

"Usagi!" Mamoru breathed, ignoring Jupiter and searching my face with a mixture of concern and apparent relief in his eyes. "Are you okay? How is your head feeling? Your cheek—"

"Oh, like hell you care about my cheek!" I exclaimed in frustration, realizing for the first time that the fire attack had melted the ice around our heads and that I could therefore get as angry as I wanted without having to worry about inhaling a mouthful of ice chunks. The red mark. He had been burned, too. "You couldn't care less what happens to me!"

"What are you talking about? Of course I care—"

"_Don't pretend you give a damn about me, baka!" _I screamed at him.

For a moment, Mamoru seemed too stunned to speak. Even I was surprised at how quickly the resentful words had welled up inside of me and tore their way out like hungry beasts, as if they possessed minds of their own. "I don't know what—you obviously don't—no idea—" he sputtered at last, looking flabbergasted.

"Go tell it to somebody who cares," I spat, turning away angrily, only to realize that my neck was still half-frozen in the ice and thereby stuck. The situation reeked of ill foreboding, I knew it did. But for the first time, I did not care. I did not care because I knew deep down inside that he did not care.

Looking back at it now, it seemed painfully obvious what Mamoru had been after all this time. It had only taken a small miscalculation on his part—the slightest hesitation—to finally reveal the truth for what it was.

'_I…I care about her.'_

I gritted my teeth. Of course, he had only been out to save his own neck. How could I have been so stupid to think that he possessed a single caring bone in his entire body? Now that the veil had been removed from my eyes, I could see that all the events of the past three days had just been excuses, excuses for—for what, I did not know. To find a way out. To escape. And even then, even when his chances for freedom were on the line, he could not bring himself to speak that one simple lie without hesitating.

I kept my eyes averted, determined not to look at anyone in the room. Now that the truth was out there for everybody to see, he could do as he liked. No more pretenses. No more pretending to care. For all I cared, he could just stay there frozen in the ice gaping at me forever, or get that strange look on his face like he was doing at this very moment and turn rather suddenly to face Mars while batting his eyelashes.

I blinked. Had I just seen what I thought I saw?

I closed my eyes, counted slowly to three, and opened them again. It was still there.

This impossible vision.

Mamoru was… He was…

…Did I dare say it? Yes, mother of avenging angels, I did!

He was_ flirting!_

"Oh, Mars-chan!" Mamoru sang, batting his lashes again and smiling at her in a way that reminded me of the time I told him I was going out of the country for two weeks, and he had actually done a little jig then. Now, however, he tittered—_actually_ tittered—and shouted with bravado that ultimately would have been coupled with an ostentatious display of throwing out his arms had they not been frozen solid in the ice, "_Mars-chan, my love!_"

My jaw dropped so fast that there was a resounding _clunk_ as it collided with the ice. What the hell did he think he was _doing?_

Everyone in the room turned to look at me.

"Talk about jealous," Sailor Mars smirked, rolling her eyes.

One of the girls scoffed in a crony-appropriate way that would have gotten them kicked out of the team pronto if I was still the leader. "Seriously!"

There were giggles.

In spite of all this, however, there was only one thing about this entire episode that left me feeling completely disconcerted: long after the others had already looked away, Mamoru continued to stare at me, as if he was trying to bore a message into my mind. However, I could not read his face while the image of him smiling so sweetly still pulsed inside my head and I turned away, unnerved.

"Oh, don't mind her, Mamoru-chan," Mars gushed, pawing at Mamoru's silky hair. "She's just jealous."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mamoru turn to face her again, the flawless smile had fixed once more onto his handsome features.

"Why, I hadn't even thought of it," he replied easily, laughing.

"Hey, Mars!" Mercury grumbled behind us. "How long do you plan on standing there and hogging him? In case you forgot, I was the one who found them, remember?"

"Save it, Mercury," Mars snapped back. "You can wait your turn. I'm the leader here!"

_No, _I'm _the leader!_ I almost wanted to shout. _Get away from him! He's mine!_

Which, of course, wasn't the most logical claim on authority that I could have made given my position of leader—something more like "Don't kill me" would probably have been better-suited given the circumstances—but I was not thinking straight. I was angry.

I cast a glance at Mars, whose dirty claws were still on Mamoru's face. No, scratch that. I was furious!

"But I want—"

"You can wait your—"

"_Shut up!_" I exploded. "All of you…SHUT UP!"

The entire room fell silent again.

"Good," I panted, breathing heavily. "Now everybody…just…_listen_."

Mamoru inclined his head ever so slightly towards mine. It was the same unreadable expression again.

"Now…now look here," I said, tearing my gaze away from his profile and looking around the room. All of the Senshi's eyes were on me. "I don't know what gave you the crazy idea that you could just burst in here and do this—"

"Well, actually, it's 'who,' and that would be Mercury-chan—" Venus began.

"_Shut up and listen to the leader!_" Mercury roared.

Venus shut up.

"Please continue."

"Thank you, Am—I mean, Sailor Mercury."

At the edge of my vision, I saw Mamoru's eyebrows shoot up. I ignored him and plowed on with as much dignity as I could muster.

"Now, I don't care whose fault this is. Blaming each other isn't going to help. In fact, the only finger that is going to be pointed tonight is at this very _nice_ young man frozen next to me for being a jack-assed little backstabber."

It was a sign of my enduring authority that none of the girls objected to my abusive language. I turned, cocked my head innocently to one side, and gave Mamoru my most winning smile.

If it was his plan to start a war against me, then he was going to have to learn to deal with a lot bigger enemies than adoring Senshi.

"Oh, is that right?" Mamoru retorted at once, turning to me with the blazing defensiveness I was much more familiar with. All traces of that unreadable stolid mask had vanished completely. "Remind me again, _dearest_ Odango, whose idiocy got us into this mess?"

The familiar banter made my sweet smile widen even more. Perfect. No messy feelings, just arguments like usual. Now _this_ I could deal with.

"We-ell," I began, dragging out the syllables with a contemplative air, "I suppose it might be logical to assume that since _you're_ the one who everybody's so madly in love with… Or wait, hold on—is there some way you're going to manage to pin that on me, too? Because I don't recall ever wishing for something quite so…how should I put it? …_Imbecilic_."

I could see a nerve pulsing angrily in Mamoru's jaw and struggled not to laugh.

"Then explain to me, _Usagi,_" he finally said in a slow, even tone, "why you're the only girl in Tokyo who's not in love with me."

I snorted. His head was denser than brick! "Why _I'm _not—geez, your ego really is bigger than I thought, Mamoru-baka, you really…"

I looked up and my voice faltered. I had just caught sight of the look on Mamoru's face.

"…really are…"

And he looked furious.

"I—I don't know why…" I stammered as his dark, brooding eyes bored into mine. What did he want me to say? That, yes, it had worked after all and that I had actually fallen in love with him in spite of everything? Somehow I doubted that.

I tried again. "Look, I didn't ask for—"

I could not finish my sentence. Something in Mamoru's face had suddenly changed.

His expression hardened.

"That's what I thought," he spat as I fumbled for words that would not come. "You didn't ask for this."

I stared at him, disbelief flooding my entire body. What was he trying to say?

Mamoru turned on Mars, who looked suddenly nervous. "Let me out."

"W-What?" she squeaked.

"I said, let me out. I can't stand another moment with this…" I saw his jaw clench tightly. "…hopeless cause."

"But I—I can't…"

"_Just do it!_" Mamoru roared, the ice trembling around us.

Sailor Mars took a step forward, glancing uncertainly at me. Then her expression changed, and I could see determination forming on her face, too. "On one condition."

Mamoru closed his eyes and slowly opened them again. "Fine," he said, his teeth still clenched. "Whatever."

"Kiss me."

"_What?_"

Everybody turned to look at me again, and this time I could feel my face burning under Mamoru's scalding gaze.

His eyes narrowed. "You have an objection, Usagi?"

I stared at him, searching his eyes frantically for some sign of a bluff. A lie. He was lying. He had to be.

There was only cold emptiness there.

He was serious. Somehow, some time along the way that I could no longer remember, I had already lost him.

"N-no…" I whispered, shaking my head but unable to take my eyes off him.

"Good." His tone was business-like as he tore his gaze from mine and turned to face Mars again. "It's settled then. One kiss, and then you release me."

At his words, I could feel my insides freeze over, although my body had long since grown accustomed to the biting cold. My breathing started coming in short, labored bursts. I should have hated him for using her the way he had used me, but that memory seemed distant and insignificant now. All I could see was what was happening in front of me.

It was all happening too clearly, too quickly.

_Do something!_ a voice inside my head screamed.

My entire body seemed to freeze.

Sailor Mars took another step forward, resolute. "And you won't run away," she said.

"I won't."

She took a deep breath. "And then maybe…" she breathed, cradling his face gently in her hands and lifting it to hers, "Maybe you'll learn to love me."

Mamoru said nothing.

In that split second before it happened, I thought I saw a pair of piercing blue eyes flash in my direction. It all passed so quickly that I hardly had time to realize that I must have imagined it when she leaned over him and her dark hair tumbled over his shoulder and Mamoru's eyes closed and Mars did the one thing that would send my entire world reeling into utter and complete chaos.

She kissed him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tasted metallic in my mouth. The entire room spun dangerously around me. Shock and panic seized me and before I even knew what was happening, I was screaming.

"STOP IT! JUST STOP IT!"

The entire room froze.

I was breathing so hard the ice around me actually shook. I felt horrified at what was happening and relieved that I had acted in time to end it and furious and betrayed and every other nameless emotion that rushed through my veins like water crashing through a floodgate. Sailor Mars wrenched herself away from Mamoru to stare at me, but I did not care. I was no longer aware of her presence. The only two people left in the room were me and Mamoru.

Mamoru, whose hair I could see now was slightly tousled in the back from where Sailor Mars' fingers had wound themselves when she pushed herself against him. Mamoru, whose stormy blue eyes seemed to widen in surprise as they fixed themselves on me. Mamoru, who looked slightly puzzled at first, then angry, and then whose expression hardened as he gazed deliberately past me at the wall opposite, his face stony.

Mamoru, the man I loved.

Mamoru, who was kneeling right in front of me and leaving my worthless life to chance.

My jaw clenched tightly, and I tasted the metallic taste of blood in my mouth again from where I had bitten down too hard to keep from screaming.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mars lift her arms as she prepared to attack and Mamoru, still crouched motionlessly next to me.

It was now or never.

"MOON PRISM POWER!" I shouted.

At once, I felt a familiar warmth growing inside of me, rooting itself like an invisible seed in my chest. The glow spread steadily through my entire being, filling me with the inexplicable feeling of being at one with everything around me. Then in one stunning moment of clarity, the light burst forth and suddenly it was as if I could see the entire room in my mind without seeing, Mamoru's wide eyes as they turned on me, disbelieving, the entire room filled with rushing white light, the shocked faces of the Senshi looking on, the ice imprisoning me caving in from within. And I knew that even though I could not be complete without Mamoru, I was no longer alone; I was at one with my true form again.

But then, without warning, the glowing warmth shuddered to a grinding halt, as if somebody had flicked the blinds closed against the sunlight and plunged the room into complete darkness. The biting sting of the ice jerked me back to reality with an almost painful awareness, and I realized with a slow, sinking feeling that something dreadful had happened.

I had not transformed.

I could not believe it.

"Moon Prism Power!" I shouted again, bracing myself.

Nothing. Not even a vague feeling of my normal powers.

What was happening? My eyes darted frantically around the room—at the Senshi, who were looking as stunned as I felt; at my clothes, which remained tauntingly unchanged; at Mamoru, whose expression I could no longer read.

"_Moon Prism Power!_"

It was no use. Why couldn't I transform?

"MOON PR—"

"_Stop it, Usagi!_"

The harsh voice cut in so sharply that I could think of nothing else but to obey it. I threw myself against the ice, letting the dry heaves that caught me in their grasp to shake my entire body. All of the thoughts and impossibilities of the past hour swirled around in my head like an impenetrable shroud of fog.

Something was wrong. I could not transform.

Had Sailor Mars hexed me? No, that was not possible; she had no influence over the elements of the moon, even if she was the strongest of the group. Luna? If anybody had the power to keep me from transforming, it would be her.

I closed my eyes, which suddenly felt like something very heavy weights pressing against my skull. Nothing made sense anymore. Nobody but direct descendants of the Silver Millennium lineage could control the powers of the Silver Imperial Crystal, even I knew that much. Even Luna did not possess that kind of power. Or had Luna been lying to me all along?

I felt suddenly sick to my stomach. Everybody had known. They had probably known for a very long time now.

"Stop it," the same harsh voice repeated from what seemed like a very far distance. I struggled to open my eyes. When I did, I found myself looking, not at the Senshi as I had expected, but into a pair of striking blue eyes. Mamoru was breathing very hard and staring directly at me.

_Get a grip on yourself_, his eyes seemed to say as they burned silently into mine.

I wrenched my gaze away from his, fighting the temptation to spin around and demand to know what his eyes could not clearly convey.

This Mamoru would not tell me to get a grip on myself. He would tell me to shut up and get over it.

"What's the matter?" Mars sneered when she caught sight of my face, which I assumed had either turned deathly pale or else undergone some hideous transformation, I neither knew nor cared. "Widdle Sailor Moon can't transform? Not so powerful anymore, are we, Usagi-chan?"

I did not respond.

"Get Mamoru out," Mars ordered the girls, spinning around gleefully. "I'll take care of the rabbit."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mercury cast a nervous glance at me, hesitating. The moment our gazes met, however, she quickly lowered her head and shuffled forward with the other two girls to free Mamoru from his icy shackles.

I noticed that the ice surrounding him was almost all gone now. Another minute and he would be completely free.

"So how does it feel, Usagi?" Sailor Mars hissed, stepping in front of me and blocking everything but her own sneering face from my vision. "How does it feel to be a second-rate lowlife who nobody wants?"

I made a civil reply by smashing my forehead as hard as I could against hers.

She screamed. There were canaries and dancing lights and mini Mamoru's doing little jigs around my head, but I could feel a vague sense of smug satisfaction setting in on me nevertheless. I always wanted to do that, and she definitely deserved it this time.

There was another resounding crack. It took me a minute to realize that Sailor Mars' skull had not split down the middle like a fissured pool ball, although I probably would not have felt too remorseful even if it had; it was the sound of ice cracking.

The crack was followed by a sharp shattering noise.

And then suddenly, I looked up and Mamoru was standing in front of me, and I barely had time to catch a glimpse of his set jaw before he swung his leg back so swiftly that the speed seemed inhuman and kicked. The ice around me shattered and I tumbled with a surprised grunt onto the carpet.

"Get out of here!" he yelled, spinning around to face the Senshi. They were just beginning to stir from where he had apparently knocked them to the floor. "I'll hold them off, just run!"

I felt dazed as I slowly pushed myself off the ground. What had happened? The entire room seemed to spin around my aching head. And why was Mamoru standing there looking so impatient?

"Don't just sit there," he shouted at me. "Run, you idiot!"

Over his shoulder, I could see the Senshi slowly clambering to their feet like a horde of drowned undead from a bad zombie game. I scrambled quickly to my feet. "Who exactly are you calling an idiot?" I demanded.

"_You_, you id—This isn't the time to argue!" he cut himself off impatiently. "Just get the hell out of here before you get yourself killed!"

Oh, _now_ he cared!

"Well, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" I shouted. "Me being dead?"

"Why would I want you dead?" he shot back in a voice that suggested he was being ordered to elope with a Frankenstein's bride.

For a nationally-ranked scholar at the top of his class, he certainly was not very bright.

"Gee, I don't know—It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that only ten seconds ago, you were ready to jet out of this place and leave me here to die, would it?"

"_Why_ would I leave you here to die?"

"Because you—_ugh!_" I threw up my hands. "Never mind. You're right, this is pointless. I'm out of here."

I spun around on my heel, expecting to find a clear pathway to the door. Instead, I found myself face to face with—what the hell, how did Jupiter get over here so _fast?_

"You're not going anywhere," she growled, taking one giant step towards me so that we were actually chest-to-face now.

"Righto, Jupiter," I chuckled weakly, taking a hasty step away from her generously-endowed bosom. "Not going anywhere. Gotcha." In the midst of my shameless groveling, I tripped over Mamoru's foot. He caught me and pushed me quickly behind him away from scary lightning-girl, whose fingers were actually shooting out sparks of crackling electricity.

I was not complaining at this point. Alive was good. Alive was very good.

Mamoru stepped in front of me. "Let her go, Jupiter. She didn't do anything."

Ahh. Well, _technically_ speaking, I was the reason why all four disgruntled Senshi were even here, but Mamoru did not need to know that…

"This is between you girls and me."

I squirmed guiltily behind him.

Sailor Jupiter's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You promised you wouldn't run away."

I looked up at Mamoru and saw that his entire body had stiffened. "I promised I wouldn't run away," he growled at last, crouching defensively in front of me, "But I never promised that I wouldn't put up a fight."

A familiar feeling swept over me as he pulled me further behind him, shielding me.

I felt protected. Safe.

I heard a scuffling noise behind me and whirled around, hands up in front of me. Mars, Mercury, and Venus were slowly advancing on us from behind.

My heart sank. We were trapped.

"Give up now and we might go easy on you, Usagi," Venus jeered, closing the circle around us.

"Yes, Usagi-chan," Mercury agreed. "You can't transform, so Venus' suggestion would actually be a wise one to follow."

"Hey!"

"What? What did I say?"

"What do you mean by 'actually?' My suggestions are always wise!"

"First I've ever heard it," I muttered under my breath as the Senshi continued to bicker like schoolchildren.

"Usagi."

I turned around to see Mamoru looking at me over his shoulder. "Huh?"

"You don't need to transform to use those powers of yours, do you?"

I bit my lip, hesitating as I gazed up into his steady eyes. Mamoru might have already found out that I was Sailor Moon, but even so, I did not know how much I should divulge to him. Would it put him in danger if he knew? But what harm could it do to tell him what he was already fully aware of?

"I don't think so," I finally said, shaking my head.

His gaze softened. "Good," he replied quietly, turning around again. "Just follow my lead."

I nodded and realized he could not see me. "Okay," I said. My heart was pounding.

Even so, I wondered how Mamoru expected the two of us to fight off four transformed, fully experienced Senshi. Even as the longest-awakened soldier besides Sailor V, I was definitely the weakest link in the group. What chance did we stand against them now?

"Usagi."

"Yeah. Um, what?"

Mamoru paused. "I know you're not exactly…happy with me right now," he finally said. "And you might not understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. But you have to trust me."

He did not have to tell me to trust him. I watched in silence as Venus bopped Mercury over the head with her love chain. I already could not keep myself from trusting him. He sounded so certain.

"Okay."

"And Usagi?"

"Hm?"

Mamoru inclined his head a fraction of a centimeter towards mine and whispered in a low voice, "When I tell you to run, I need you to run. Understand?"

"Y-yes—"

"_Now!_"

Mamoru pushed away from me so quickly that I stumbled backwards. In a flash, he charged past me and straight into the circle where the Senshi were still arguing with one another.

With one powerful kick, he knocked Venus into the wall behind her, causing the love chain to soar halfway across the room and land in a potted plant. He moved so swiftly that I suspected him of being a much more experienced fighter than he had ever let on. Before Mercury could react, he spun around and gripped her by the arm, preparing to send her after her fallen teammate.

But I had no time to stand idly and watch, because I suddenly sensed a burst of moving air behind me. I whirled around just in time to dodge Jupiter's fist, which whizzed dangerously past my right ear. Grabbing her arm, I twisted around just as it fully extended and used her momentum to throw her. She toppled headlong into the couch, unharmed but quite plainly out of commission.

I was feeling rather proud of myself when I turned around and saw Mars lifting a vase of roses over her head, aiming it straight at my head. Before I could even shriek, however, Mamoru came flying out of nowhere and tackled her by the legs, sending her crashing towards the floor.

"Thanks," I sighed, feeling relieved. The feeling, however, not mutual.

"_My vase!_" Mamoru roared, diving to the ground nose-first with remarkable speed.

The vase soared high into the air, spinning happily as it peaked in its high arc and came plummeting back down to the floor again. Mamoru's chin skidded against the floor just as the vase landed neatly in his outstretched fingertips.

He was breathing rather heavily and looking like a man who had just seen his life flash before his eyes.

I stopped fighting for my life for a minute and glanced down at him.

"Uh, Mamoru…? You okay there?"

"This…was…from ancient China," he panted, rolling onto his back and hugging the vase tightly to his chest. "It cost me…a fortune…"

"Oh, okay. So it'd be good if we just—EEK!"

A giant fireball was rushing right for the spot between my eyes. I jumped out of the way with a tiny "eep!" and hit the floor, tumbling and flailing every which way.

My leg, as it turned out, flailed straight into Mamoru's precious vase.

It performed a sort of halfhearted leap out of Mamoru's arms and hit the floor, shattering into a thousand tiny little fragments of ancient Chinese history.

"Oops," I squeaked.

Mamoru was still lying on his back, looking much like a turtle might have if I had recently killed it.

"Well, at least you can say you have _lots_ of expensive Chinese pieces now," I chuckled weakly when he did not move. "Right, M…Mamoru?"

Maybe not. He looked like I had just stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. Repeatedly. And maybe with a machete instead of a letter opener.

He finally opened his mouth.

"Usagi…"

I winced. "Yes…?"

Mamoru turned his eyes very slowly on mine.

"_Run."_

The plaintiveness of his voice caught me so off guard that for a moment, I simply froze. And then he rolled over, grabbed one of the roses still lying on the floor, and leapt up to his feet.

"_RUN, USAGI!_"

I ran.

I ducked and pelted for the door, fumbling with the lock. Behind me, Mamoru was doing something to keep the remaining Senshi occupied; I could hear them scrambling around the room for cover. Finally, there was a soft _click_ and the door swung open.

The entire Malibu Barbie fan club was standing on the doorstep.

I stood there for a moment, stunned, then slammed the door in the face of a six-foot tall cheerleader.

"What are you doing?" Mamoru shouted, dropping the rose in his hand when he saw me lock the door shut again. I looked around. Come to think of it, where had the rest of the roses disappeared to? And where were the other Senshi? "Get out of here!"

"That exit's _occupied_," I growled through my teeth, marching back into the room again and kicking Mercury, who had just gotten unsteadily to her feet again, in the shin. She howled in pain and hopped into a bookshelf, which promptly rained down a flood of books. The spine of a particularly heavy volume hit her over the head, instantly knocking her out.

I paused over her supine body, surprised. The brainiest Senshi had just been put out of commission by a book.

I was so immersed in the irony of it all that I did not notice anything else until somebody grabbed me by the wrist. We had already flown by the kitchen doorway before I realized that Mamoru was dragging me to the other door.

"Wh-what are you doing?" I squeaked, squirming under his tight grip.

He continued pulling me along like a parent pulling a child away from the candies section of the grocery store. "We're taking the express route," he said, tugging at me to make me walk faster.

"'_Express—'_"

I looked up. We were heading for the balcony.

Oh, shit.

"We're not—you can't be—this is the _eighth floor!_" I screeched, scrambling in the other direction so hard that Mamoru actually had to stop and grab hold of me again.

"It's either that or fifteen million girls outside waiting to gouge our eyes out," he replied through gritted teeth, dragging me forward again. "So stop…being…so…difficult!"

I wasn't going to win against him, but he was going to have to work for every step. I dug my heels deeper into the carpet.

"I'd rather take the girls," I replied quickly. It seemed a heck of a lot safer than taking a flying leap off of his balcony, at any rate.

Mamoru ignored me and shoved both of my hands into his left one so that he could open the balcony door with the other hand, which annoyed me because it meant that he did not even have to try to restrain me. Me! Sailor Moon! "Look, Usagi," he finally said when he had pushed the door open, "I know you're scared—"

"Scared?" I shrieked. "I'm _terrified!_"

"—but I need you to trust me," he finished, his eyes softening a little bit as he looked at me.

I could feel myself melt a little inside before he even said it. Compassion mingled with resentment welled up inside of me. You couldn't just drop a bombshell on someone out of nowhere like that and expect them to _not_ acquiesce.

Mamoru took advantage of my hesitation and swept me into his arms before I could say another word. I screamed, scrabbling against his shirt for better purchase as he walked calmly out onto the balcony with me in tow.

It was when he planted one foot on the vase of roses sitting on the balcony that I noticed it. Mamoru was grinning.

Actually _grinning_.

It briefly occurred to me that he might not be in his right mind and was actually a suicidal maniac who was just taking me along for the ride. The fall. The _kersplat _noise that we would probably both make when we hit the pavement eight stories down. Unless people who fell from such heights did not last long enough to make a _kersplat_.

Dammit, why hadn't I figured this out earlier when escape was still a viable option?

"Okay, put me down, put me down put me down put me down NOW!" I screeched, raining fists down on Mamoru's chest.

"Hey, hey—calm down, Odango! What are you—"

"I've changed my mind about this!"

"If you don't quit it, you're going to fall!" Mamoru interrupted.

I stopped instantly.

"What's gotten into you?" he demanded when he was sure that I was not going to put up a fight again. "You could have killed us both!"

"No, that was _you_."

"What do you mean?" Mamoru hoisted me more securely into his arms and placed his foot on the vase again. "I told you that you could trust me, didn't…?"

He stopped. Realization dawned on his features.

"You thought…" Then he paused and began to chuckle. "You thought I was _suicidal_, didn't you?"

I made a face at him. "It's not funny," I shot back. "You could have been!"

"Yeah," he chuckled, "That would explain why I've been trying so hard to stay alive today, doesn't it?"

_Stay alive._ The word rang in my head.

_Survival. Escape._

_Self-preservation. Excuses._

The forgotten thoughts rang in my head again like a painfully loud gong. I felt my entire body stiffen.

Mamoru must have felt me tense in his arms, because he hesitated before speaking again. "Look, Usagi," he said at last, looking down at me, "I'll explain everything when you're safe again. But I need you to trust me."

There were those words again. Trust.

Could I really trust him after everything that had happened?

I slowly raised my eyes to his, searching for an answer. To my surprise, I found something there that I had never seen before. Or maybe I had just never noticed it.

I found myself gazing into a pair of disconcertingly familiar blue eyes. Even in the dim light that filtered outside, I knew that I had seen them somewhere before. Dark bangs, slightly disheveled from the day's events, tumbled over them like clouds setting in over the horizon of an impending storm.

I blinked. The vision had faded, but the nameless feeling still lingered.

"I…I trust you,' I said at last.

I saw Mamoru's face break into a relieved smile. "Good," he replied, leaping lightly off the vase and onto on the railing. As he pushed off, his foot caught and the vase wobbled before toppling over, shattering into a million pieces on the marble.

"Ah…" He winced, glancing over his shoulder at the spilled flowers. "Well, no matter," he remarked at last as he turned to grin cheekily at me. "I don't have the first one anymore, so I guess it doesn't really matter if I break the rest of the collection now, too."

But I did not hear him. I was still staring at the overturned vase of roses. Because I suddenly realized where I had seen those eyes before.

The roses.

The dark hair.

The uncanny swiftness and strength.

That voice.

"_Tuxedo Kamen_?"

I felt a sharp jerk underneath me as Mamoru suddenly lost his footing and we both pitched forward, tumbling over the edge of the railing.

"_USAGI!"_

I screamed.

The last thing I saw were his stormy eyes widening with shock before the city lights rushed up to meet me and I plunged through the darkness, his gaze still burning vividly against the cold night air.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

End of Chapter 4

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So now here's the million-dollar question for you: What does _your_ audience card say now? Does it say "BOO"? Does it say "POLICE INTERVENTION"? Or does it say something else, something entirely unexpected, something new and innovative that only _you_ can tell me?

Well, there's the point. Tell me! Review!

I thought it would be appropriate to mention in my ending author's notes (since nobody wants to read a bunch of blathering at the beginning of the chapter) that there may be _two_ more chapters instead of one. So the next one may not be the final one, depending how much junk I can shove into it. But we shall have to wait and see!

Also, I wanted to add that for everyone who is also subscribed to my "100 drabbles," there will be no updates for that until possibility late August, but be on the lookout for new drabbles that I have written and will post soon from this year's Livejournal 35 drabbles challenge!

Okay, that's all for now! I'm off to dodge some thrown cue signs and maybe boot Garfield and Arlene off the fence somewhere. Cheers!


	6. Chapter 5

Good heavenly gods. There is, after all, some justice in this world. After nearly five years, in which tempers were thrown, writing ruts were sunk into, and an indecent amount of trees were not spared because I had to print every single darn word in order to make it work, _Notebooks_ is finally _finished._

Really, who would've thunkit? Don't say you would have. I know I had my fair share of doubts, and really, who would have blamed you if you had called shenanigans long before this?

That being said, however, my wit has run dry—and this opening delay has been far too long as it is. So here it is, to all (or any) of you who stuck it through until now—after five years in the making, the completed "Notebooks, Not Love Notes."

* * *

Notebooks, Not Love Notes

Ala Verity

Chapter 5

* * *

The wind screamed in my ears. I knew nothing except exploding stars against rushing darkness and the sickening sound of the ground stretching open its quivering jowls.

Something solid slammed into me. My head hit something unbelievably soft. The world spun crazily on its axis for a moment, and then stopped spinning altogether. Time held its breath.

I opened my eyes.

The barely visible outline of a tall building towered over my head, reaching its concrete arms to snatch at the night sky. My numb fingers fumbled for purchase and encountered something silky. Damp. Familiar. The word swam through my head, eluding capture, until all at once it snagged like a fish on a hook.

Grass. That was the word.

My thoughts struggled through the cake-like haze that shrouded my mind. That was right. This was a lawn. The thoughts came rushing in now. The yawning building was Mamoru's apartment complex. I was lying on the lawn outside of Mamoru's apartment building. I was lying here and somehow, I was alive.

Through this murky realization, a voice seemed to float into my ear.

"…okay? Are you hurt?" Radio static. Then, again. "Usagi, talk to me."

I felt my head turn towards where I thought the voice was coming from and found Mamoru's face mere inches from mine.

"Thank God," I heard him breathe in an oddly muffled way, as if I was hearing him through a layer of thick foam.

A groan involuntarily issued from my lips as I tried to push myself up onto an elbow. My arms felt like two large splinters, stiff and painful, attached to my shoulders.

"I've got you," I heard Mamoru say in the same distant way and feeling a warm hand press against the small of my back. The next thing of which I became aware was the unfamiliar pressure on my feet—I was standing.

"Can you walk?"

At once, I felt my legs begin to move mechanically, almost as if of their own accord. I had the strangest sensation that they belonged to somebody else, and I was merely taking them out on loan. The steady _thud, thud_ of feet on the pavement felt strangely soothing, and I allowed myself to be led without thinking.

The next thing I knew, I was being helped into a bright and warm place.

"Come on. Sit down."

I struggled not to squint under the blinding lights.

The Crown Arcade swam into focus. Mamoru pulled out one of the plastic red chairs and helped me into it before sinking into the seat opposite me. The checkered table propped up his elbow, his elbow propped up his hand, and his hand propped up the weariest, most sobered face I thought I had ever seen.

The words that had not come during the seconds, minutes, maybe hours we had been walking now struggled to the sticky surface of my mind.

"What happened?"

The eyes in that worn face raised themselves slowly to meet mine. Mamoru seemed to consider me for a moment, searching for something that existed beyond this florescent-lighted room, and his expression softened a little.

"You fell." Pause. An almost involuntary shrug. Guilty. "I dropped you."

That was right.

"But you saved me," I said, still not understanding.

Another shrug.

"Because you're Tuxedo Kamen."

This time, Mamoru's eyes no longer strayed across the room. He looked straight at me. "No."

I fought not to give in to the sudden indignation, the sudden overwhelming sense of being completely wronged that burst inside of me like an overfilled balloon. Mamoru, however, seemed to read my thoughts, because he suddenly shook his head.

"I mean yes, I am—" He drew in a deep, almost denying breath that seemed to shake his entire frame, even though I was also completely sure that he did not so much as flinch. "I am Tuxedo Kamen, but that's not why I saved you."

It seemed wrong, in light of everything that had happened, to feel the next words that flitted unbidden to the tip of my tongue but refused to be swallowed back into oblivion.

"Then why…did you do it?"

He glanced up at me again and his eyes revealed something I had not expected to see there—surprise. The question that followed betrayed no guile, not even hesitation…only real concern. A question that needed answering.

"Usagi, do you really think I hate you that much?"

I opened my mouth to answer and closed it again, biting my lip.

Did I think that he hated me?

Yes, I did. No. Had. The memory of the words I had flung like sharp arrows at him back in his apartment suddenly turned and flew, snarling, straight at their archer, and I shivered.

Somehow the realization that I was in love with Mamoru had seeped through my veins like a silent poison. The thought that he didn't love me back had been unbearable, but the hope that he might—just _might_—feel something other than the contempt that he showed me when we were together had seemed impossible.

Now, however, sitting under the harsh lights across from Mamoru, who was looking at me with such intensity that we could have been the last two people in the world, the poison seemed to slow a little.

"I don't think you hate me anymore," I said at last.

A small smile twitched at the corner of Mamoru's mouth, and I hurried to answer his unasked question.

"I don't think you hate me anymore," I repeated, "but I did think you did before. And it didn't make sense to me why you would want to save somebody that you obviously…didn't want around."

"And that's why…?"

"That's why I was a complete and utter irrational jerk, yes," I finished for him, watching with a mixture of exasperation and amusement as a shadow of a grin flitted across Mamoru's features.

"And you thought that I'd let you get blasted into smithereens because we happen to be dubbed mortal afternoon enemies?"

A few words mumbled themselves out of my mouth, none of which were remotely coherent.

Mamoru really was grinning now. "Then you really do have meatballs for brains, Odango. What did you think this was, a drama or something?"

A couple more words dribbled out and shriveled up in the deaf air.

"Things like that don't happen in real life," he said, still chuckling shaking his head.

At these words, the coherency regulator on my voice box seemed to rev back to life. "People in real life don't have hidden superhero alter egos, either," I pointed out, with such bluntness that Mamoru actually looked taken aback for a moment.

"I guess not," he said slowly. "I'd never really thought about it that way. It was always just something that was, you know." He shrugged. "Just there."

I nodded. "Speaking of which…" I waited until he met my gaze again and then steeled myself to ask the question that had been nagging at me ever since I had been able to form coherent thoughts again. "If everything you're saying is true and you don't hate me, then why didn't you transform into Tuxedo Kamen back when all those things were happening?"

I held my breath. In the deafening silence that followed, I could hear a clock ticking like a time bomb somewhere behind me.

"Erm," Mamoru said at last, at the same time that the faint flush of his cheeks screamed volumes of unpleasant explanations at me. However, I stared at him until he finally wrenched his eyes away from mine. When he did speak, he spoke determinedly at the salt shaker sitting in the middle of our table.

"I presume you're familiar with all the rumors about the relationship between…Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Moon?" he asked the salt, choking, in spite of the clear lack of judgment on the part of his inanimate listener, on the last two names.

At this unexpected reference, flames instantly shot up in my face, too. If the latest tabloid reports were any indicator—and I'm not confirming or denying any of this—the two superheroes were doing things in places of which I _definitely_ had no recollection.

"Y-yes," I stammered at last, for lack of anything better to say.

We graced opposite walls of the arcade with our awkward stares. Mamoru cleared his throat.

"Anyway," he said, looking—well, sounding, since I still hadn't quite worked up the nerve to look at him again yet—determined to keep this conversation as platonic as possible. "After you revealed your identity to me, and in light of the feelings of, er, animosity that you seemed to be feeling towards me at the time—"

I blushed, if possible, even harder.

"—I just thought that it wouldn't be, well, _prudent_ to associate the one person Sailor Moon lo—that is to say, likes, with someone that you hate as much as…"

There was a general gesture of arms towards his own person that quite clearly expressed what he meant but that he did not seem quite willing to put into words. In the meantime, I had spent the past minute or so tugging rather uncomfortably at the collar of my shirt. Was it just me, or was it getting hot in here?

"So," I said at last, with the slowness of somebody speaking through a sea of gelatin, "let me get this straight. You thought I'd rather die than be saved by somebody who you heard through rumors that I lov—er, liked, but who also turned out to be in civilian form my worst enemy?"

Mamoru shrugged.

"And you say _I_ watch too many dramas," I added, more for lack of anything better to say when he did not say anything than because I felt like being a clever one.

"That's not the only reason," Mamoru said suddenly, fixing me with such a steady gaze that I found I could not tear my eyes away from him.

Unfortunately, the moment would have been much more dramatic if I actually knew what the man was talking about. Seeing as I hadn't the faintest idea, however, I ventured a guess.

"Not the reason you…watch too many dramas?" I said, somewhat stupidly.

"No."

"Oh."

We both paused. I waited for him to jump in with a ready explanation, and when he simply sat there staring at me with all the forthingcomingness of a stone statue, I could not resist blurting, "Reason for what?"

"Why I didn't transform."

"Oh," I said again. "And so—" The words caught in my throat, digging their gnarly fingers into my tongue and the roof of my mouth and anywhere they could to prevent themselves from being uttered into existence, but I fought until I finally spit them out.

"So if it's not just because you were worried that I wouldn't like to know that you and Tuxedo Kamen were the same person…why _didn't_ you transform?"

My words leapt from my lips and latched onto Mamoru's, tugging rather wryly at the corner of his mouth so that he almost seemed to smile.

"Because I wanted there to be a part of my identity that you could almost…well, almost love."

The room trembled under the weight of his words, which ran over me ten times like a runaway steam engine. Then they chugged back and ran me over a few more times for good measure.

"Mamoru," I said, trying to ignore the steadily sense of tremor that made the linoleum floor beneath my feet tremor, as if our table had been built on top of a pair of railroad tracks and the steam engine really was coming back for a twentieth taste. "Mamoru, I—"

I don't know what I intended to say next—what does one say in response to an arch-enemy's out-of-the-green-and-magenta-skies confession that he wouldn't mind being the object of your affection? But it definitely wasn't the next words that popped out of my mouth.

I looked down at my shoes to buy some time when I noticed a crumpled napkin sitting there. And there was no doubt about it. It was _moving_.

In fact, the whole room was shaking like a volcanic magma beast ready to erupt.

So I just said it.

Screamed it, more like, actually.

"Oh my God, they're _com_—"

And that's when the room exploded.

* * *

"Selene!"

"Thoth? Thoth!"

"What's happening?"

"I don't—something's wrong with the Alethia-o-meter—"

"Something's _wrong_?"

"I don't know—I can't control it, I try to act and it doesn't respond—"

"You mean…you mean they're down there on their own?"

"…Yes."

"Oh, gods. Please tell me you called off the terms of the wish before this happened. …You _did_ cancel the wish like you said you would, didn't you?"

"Thoth, please—if I ever did anything like you told me to, would we be in this mess right now?"

"Who's down there with them?"

"Right now?"

"No, during the Silver Millennium—yes, right now!"

"…Everyone?"

"_Everyone?_"

"Yes. Well, all of Tokyo, anyway."

"And you realize the danger the two of them are in if the transformation ban you set up is still in place while they're being attacked by all the love fiends of Tokyo?"

"Well, yes—"

"This is our future king and queen that we're talking about!"

"Yes, yes, _I know._"

"…I _told_ you this would—"

"_Yes_, Thoth, I am quite aware of what you _told_ me—but now would be a much better time to tell me what to _do_ about it!"

"You know as well as I do that there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Unless…"

"The only way this will end…is if they fulfill the contract the Alethia-o-meter set out for them. On their own."

"Oh, gods. …Selenity save us all. Save _them_."

* * *

My first instinct was to run. My second instinct was to stand my ground and fight like the true Sailor Senshi I was.

"What are you doing, you idiot?" Mamoru screamed when he saw me standing there with my knees bent, legs apart like a rhino ready to rampage. "_Run_!"

Well, they always do say to trust your first instinct.

We both whirled around, looking for an escape—but there was none. In the five seconds or so it had taken us to register what was happening, what seemed like all of Tokyo had appeared in the windows, at the doorways—and they didn't look like they were here for a milkshake.

"Here," Mamoru said, shoving something into my hand as I gaped at an eighty-year old nanny brandishing a pair of knitting needles at me through the window. She was mouthing obscenities that, though I couldn't hear them, made themselves pretty clear.

"Oh, too much info," I said, wrinkling my nose in disgust as I caught the gist of her last silent epithet and turning to look at Mamoru. "Did you see what that old lady just said she wanted to do to you?"

Something in Mamoru's unamused look told me that he probably did, and certainly did not want to discuss it.

"Okay, fine, killjoy," I muttered, flipping the steel dustpan—which was what Mamoru had stuck into my hands moments earlier—over a few times. "Just trying to start a conversation."

"In case you haven't noticed," he replied, teeth tightly gritted, "we should probably be thinking about a lot more than conversation right now."

"Oh, come on. They're out there, we're in here. What's the worst that could happen?"

_BAM._

We looked at them. We looked at each other.

"You mean that?"

"Er, yeah. That."

Mamoru shifted his grip on the mop he held, warrior-style. "Well, I guess it's a damn good thing we're both fully certified superheroes, eh?"

And those were the last words I heard before the locked doors came crashing down, followed by the roaring thunder of heels and estrogen.

Mamoru and I instantly turned, back to back, as the horde descended on us. A particularly ugly secretary-type brunette rushed at me from the front. The observation sprang up on me even under the mounting pressure that she was sporting a pair of unsightly fishnets under her violent red suit-and-skirt that looked like they had been dragged down from an ancient crow's nest rigging.

"_Eeeyahh!"_ she shrieked, rushing at me with a lethal-looking ledger raised over her head.

"Urgh!" I squealed, squeezing my eyes shut as I slammed her across the head as hard as I could with the dustpan. It made contact with a satisfying _clang!_ and I opened my eyes just in time to see the devil lady went spin like a top to the linoleum floor.

"Ha! That's one for me!" I yelled over my shoulder as I applied my weapon with renewed inspiration to a fifteen-year old rendition of Malibu Barbie.

"_Can—we—just—focus—for the—moment_?" Mamoru flung back at me, accompanying each word with an emphatic swipe of his mop that brought another victim to the ground. I looked at the rapidly swelling pile at his feet. He was already swimming in a sea of downed pantyhose and cashmere cardigans.

"Grump," I muttered just as something slammed into me from behind and nearly sent me flying across the arcade.

I whirled on it, but it was only—

"Mamoru?" I shouted.

"Shit," he said, and I saw him holding up the splintered remains of his mop. "_Ugh_!"

"Don't yell, I'm right behind you!" I snapped, taking a magnificent swing with my dustpan that made contact with an arthritic-looking lady's knees. "I can hear you just fine!"

"_Agh!"_

"Fine, fine—_what_?" I said, swatting away the manicured nails that were creeping up my sleeve. I spun around on the spot to face Mamoru, only to find him already being dragged halfway across the room by a particularly gleeful looking bunch of seventh-graders.

"Oh," I said, pausing in my swiping rampage to stare at him. "Ahoy there, matey."

"Give me—argh! Give me something!"

"What?" I said, blinking stupidly at him. "Give you what?"

"_Anything_!" he roared from beneath the swelling masses of prepubescent faces that threatened to engulf him completely.

I looked around, my hand snatching at the first thing within my reach, and chucked it as hard as I could at the rapidly-closing black hole of uniforms. From somewhere in the midst of it, Mamoru's hand burst out of masses like a flying squirrel out of a rosebush and grabbed the flying object.

Even from inside of the growing girl-glob, I heard his muffled—but distinctly indignant, voice shouting at me. "_A banana? Really?_"

"Either deal with it or risk losing your own!" I shouted back over my shoulder as I bowled over an entire line of waitresses dressed in camouflage.

I think he got the point, because the next thing I saw was the entire group of girls running for their lives and Mamoru bursting out from the fray like a Greek god covered in golden banana bits. To this day, I _still_ don't know what he did with that banana to make them shriek and fly that way—and frankly, I'm not sure I want to know.

Anyway, at this point I was busy enough dealing with what remained of crowd control without having to worry about a man who could evidently take very good care of himself. I vaulted the counter as a flying napkin dispenser exploded over my head on the wall. Mamoru landed next to me only seconds later, looking distinctly harried.

"Gee, thanks for not much back there," he spat as he brushed the remaining banana pieces out from his hair.

"On the bright side," I said, pulling the stem off the cherry I was holding and chucking it over the counter a la grenade before finishing, "if you'd been eaten alive, you'd have become a martyr and maybe everything would've gone back to normal. It would've been a win-win."

A much more effective bucket of cleaning supplies went flying in the wake of my makeshift cherry bomb and Mamoru, who had thrown it, rolled his eyes at me with (I thought) unnecessary sass.

"You know, I can't help but notice that in spite of the fact that we're the only two sane—well, _relatively_ sane people left on earth right now, you're maintaining a surprising level of hostility towards me."

"Pray tell," I said, groping around for another object I could use as a missile-projectile.

"Whoa there, tiger!"

I suddenly felt a warm pressure on my wrist and looked up to see Mamoru's hand wrapped around mine. I had somehow managed to wrest my brooch from my shirt without even noticing and had apparently been intent on hurling it over the counter. "You might want to hang on to that, okay?" he said, gently wresting it from my clenched fingers and placing it safely on the floor behind us.

Imagine your heart beating as a warm touch lingers on the back of your hand. Imagine the intensity of the gaze that prevents you from blinking, from breaking that suspended moment in which your eyes meet his and it seems almost as if there is the chance—the hope—that something will happen, that he will lean in, that he might just kiss you…

Now imagine that scene being promptly shattered by about the few hundred Amazonian women leaping off of arcade machines and chucking various jukebox parts what part of your head is exposed behind a countertop.

"Bye bye, Sailor V," I said sadly as the coveted game machine went crashing to the floor beneath a stampede of shiny stilettos.

"Looks like we're up for round two, eh?" I looked up just in time to catch Mamoru's rueful grin before he leapt to his feet again.

'Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb!' I berated myself as he somehow managed to keep the swarms at bay above me. I remained where I crouched on the floor for another minute or so, beating myself over the head (as inconspicuously as I could) with a rusty spatula. 'Pull yourself together, Usagi! Even if he _was_ interested—"

"Uh, not to rain on your parade down there or anything, but…a little help here, please?"

"Oh! Right," I said as Mamoru helped me scramble to my feet. "Manic horde. Forgot."

Mamoru's eyebrow did a skeptical little jig at me.

"Wha-at?" I said defensively. "It's been a long day, okay?"

"I had no idea," Mamoru smirked, rolling his eyes.

I grinned back at him, but I felt my smile slip as I turned to look at the crowd now congregated in the arcade.

Did I say congregated? I meant _swarming_. Festering. You name it, they were probably doing it.

From every corner and single inch of open space in the arcade, a thousand or more contorted faces roared, snarled, growled in all of their lip-glossed glory. Somebody had torn the "MAXIMUM CAPACITY: 47" sign from its usual post and piled it onto the stack of debris with which to load a trebuchet. High heels clicked, hairspray swirled, and a familiar-looking apron in the corner waved—hang on, _apron_?

"Oh my god, baka," I gasped, pointing, "Look—it's _Motoki!_"

"_What?_ No way! Where?"

"Over there!"

I stood on tiptoe, scanning the crowd so anxiously for another glimpse ofthe telltale blond hair that I hardly felt the tugs at my sleeve that grew progressively more urgent.

"Er, Usagi?"

"Mm?" I said, still craning my neck over the masses and swatting away the occasional set of bared teeth with a stainless steel saucepan that had somehow found its way into my hands.

"_Usagi!_"

"_What?_"

I spun on Mamoru with, I admit, something more than a readiness to employ my new weapon on him out of irritation. I stopped, however, when I found him staring into the opposite corner of the arcade by the now debilitated jukebox, his eyes as wide as if somebody had clothespinned them open that way.

"Mamoru-baka, wh—"

"I don't think Motoki is our biggest concern right now," he said in a hoarse voice, still staring.

I faintly discerned a spark of lightning leap up from the corner at which we were now both ogling and shuddered.

"Oh."

A flash of fire lit up the side of Mamoru's face as he turned his horrified eyes towards me, and we both mouthed the doom-laden words at the same time.

"_The Sailor Senshi._"

We both stood there gaping at one another, ignoring the shrieks that rebounded from every side of the arcade now as the Senshi cleared a path towards us.

"Well," Mamoru croaked.

"Well," I echoed.

"Looks like, erm, they've found us." I heard the same hopelessness I was feeling sink into his voice.

"Yeah…" Then, glancing over at the flaming Senshi at the front of the four, I said rather weakly and only half joking, "Got any more pucker-up left in you, Prince Charming?"

The change was barely noticeable, but Mamoru's eyes suddenly seemed to fix on me more intently than before.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" he said quietly.

Next to us, the frenzy and shouts grew louder.

I had already decided that if wasn't going to own up to it, I certainly wasn't going to spell it out for him. The same feeling of constriction I had felt at Mamoru's apartment filled my chest again, but I would rather have swallowed my tongue at the moment than say it out loud.

"You know what I mean."

"No." His blue eyes were boring into me, I was sure, even though I continued to glare resolutely at the floor. "I wouldn't be asking if I did."

I mumbled something that must have made me sound about as articulate as a horse eating peanut butter.

"Usagi." I forced myself to meet his gaze which, although steady, seemed so much more searching in spite of it. "Look, if you have something you want to tell me…"

He trailed off as a blinding flash of light flared, and I knew from the uproar that Venus had used her Love Chain somewhere close by. The Senshi were almost upon us.

"—_now_ might be a good time," he finished, with a rather strained glance in their direction.

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. "Mamoru, if we live through this, I just want you to know that it doesn't matter to me who you kiss or what you feel like you have to say to justify it. Just do what you have—I mean, want to."

Well! He couldn't have looked more stunned if I had announced that I had given birth to the great Scandinavian monster Grendel himself.

"Remind me again what that has to do with anything?" he said, sounding like he had suddenly come down with a bad head cold. He even looked like he had one; his hands went up to his temples and he squeezed his eyes shut as if he couldn't keep them open a second longer.

"Well," I said, feeling a flutter of confusion settling on me, "back in the apartment, you seemed—I mean, when you, _you_ know—"

And I trailed off and shot him a meaningful look as if he really _did_ know.

"All I 'know,'" he said, "is that you went berserk on me back there, and I still can't figure out for the life of me why."

"Hey, don't—don't try and blame this on me!"

"I'm not _trying_ to, but—" His hand ran almost frantically through his hair. "You can't expect me to read your mind, and you're certainly not making this easy!"

I hesitated. My eyes flickered unconsciously to Sailor Mars, who was fighting through the last wall of girls towards our counter, and I immediately wrenched my gaze back to Mamoru's—but he had seen me. I watched with growing desperation as the pieces clicked in his mind.

"You're telling me," he said slowly, "that you were angry because I kissed Sailor Mars—I mean, Rei?"

There was an explosion behind us. Pieces of dusty debris fell from the ceiling.

"I am," I said, trying to gather my thoughts as the room seemed to spin around me and Mamoru's eyes widened, "I mean, I was, but—"

"Watch out!"

"What?"

"_Watch out!_"

The next thing I knew, I was nose-to-nose with the slick linoleum tiles again. A sharp jet of water blasted into the wall right over my head, leaving an ominous-looking dent where my face had been just moments earlier.

"Always with the interruptions," I grumbled, dusting my shirt off and allowing myself to be pulled to my feet by Mamoru, who was already standing facing the four angry Senshi. It seemed as if they had finally managed to fight their way across the room to us.

As I struggled to find my balance, I looked around and found us standing in the far corner of the arcade.

We were trapped.

"You're telling me you were angry because I kissed Rei?" Mamoru said as if nothing had happened, abruptly wrenching me from my thoughts of impending doom.

My eyes roved among the four familiar faces in front of me. Each one had hardened into unyielding granite, not a trace of friendly recognition left. I could literally see sparks flying from Sailor Mars' fingertips. And the man was really trying to continue this discussion _now_?

"Erm…can we save this conversation for later?" I asked, pointing rather skeptically at the heaving, slightly singed Senshi in front of us. "You might not have noticed, but we're kind of, you know, about to die."

"You idiot," he growled over his shoulder, still standing between us, "you still think there's going to be a later?"

He had a point, but I was too busy watching Sailor Jupiter's menacing gloved hands preparing another lightning bolt to figure out what that was.

"Usagi…!"

"Wh-what—_fine_!" I threw up my hands at what I was sure would be the last thing I would ever live to see—the back of Mamoru's head, the only thing separating me now from my four fellow Senshi, whose merciless eyes flashed death at me as they approached. "You want to know why I was upset? I don't even know myself. Sure," I said, my voice rising as I glared at the statue standing stock still in front of me, "I was angry because you'd kissed Rei. I was so mad I thought I'd tear somebody's hair out. I thought I'd like to tear _your_ hair out. And I was angry because I didn't know how somebody who I thought I hated so much—somebody who hated _me_ so much—would ever, could ever—"

His voice interrupted me so quietly that I barely caught the words fluttering over the sound of the sputtering, half-broken fan above us.

"Could ever what?"

The two words caught in my throat pounded in my head, pounded in my chest, pounded in my heart, but did not find voice.

My eyes flew up to Sailor Mercury—up to those intelligent, bright eyes that used to wink at me when I would get a problem wrong and she would say, laughing, "Oh, Usagi-chan—you're hopeless!" My gaze traveled slowly to Sailor Jupiter, who only last week had helped sneak me out of detention by phoning the principle and telling him I had a highly contagious case of avian flu. I found my eyes gradually roving over to Sailor Mars—her haughty expression always in place, but hardened now from what I had remembered it could be, that softened look when we sat down and talked about our uncertain futures. And then there was Sailor Venus, her blonde shock of hair cascading over her shoulders, her deft fingers toying with the love chain that had saved me so many times, and that would now be the end of both Mamoru and me.

My eyes landed on the man standing with his back still facing me, his body unmoving. And I felt the words crept to my lips again.

"Could ever what?" he asked again, so softly this time that it could have been as much my thoughts as the sound of his voice that spoke to me.

I watched, as if through someone else's eyes, as Sailor Mars' mouth formed the words for the final blow. Watched as Mamoru stood there in front of me, unflinching, as her a steady flame grew in her hands and lit up the entire room.

"Love me," I whispered.

All of a sudden I felt a pair of strong hands gripping my shoulders—I felt a searing heat engulfing my entire body in its fiery blaze—saw—no, couldn't see—through the blinding flash of light—felt something warm and sweet and gentle press against my lips, and then—

Nothing.

* * *

It started as a tiny buzz in my ears, like the kind you sometimes hear when you're next door to a room where somebody has turned the television on. Then it began to grow into a low hum, as if somebody was whispering into my ear from all sides. It was when it became a distinctive murmur of voices—the sound of an entire crowd of people murmuring from every corner of the room—that I opened my eyes—and found myself still firmly and undeniably kissing Chiba Mamoru.

I felt him smile against my lips. He pressed in for one final moment before he pulled away slowly, and I watched hazily as those familiar blue eyes met mine again.

Nothing was burning. Nobody was dying.

"What happened?" were the first words that left my lips when I found that they had stopped tingling enough for me to speak.

"I haven't the faintest idea—and to be honest, I have a feeling we're probably not going to find out anytime soon," Mamoru said, grinning as I gazed around us, feeling slightly bemused. "But then again," I heard him murmur as my eyes swept the room, "when did any of this supernatural superhero business ever make sense?"

In the midst of everything around us, one thing was certain, for which I was somehow grateful—it hadn't all been a dream. The entire place still looked like a complete mess; it looked as if there had been a killer tornado, and Crown Arcade had been right at the heart of its destruction path. The only sign that the ultimate apocalypse hadn't actually hit were the people—dozens of them lying on the floor, and probably hundreds more visible outside on the sidewalk, too—who, it seemed, were unharmed but just beginning to stir.

"What happened…?" I heard one girl mutter as she pushed herself off the floor.

"Where are we?"

"What are you wearing?"

"What are _you_ wearing?"

"Is that a trebuchet?"

"Why do you have C.M. tattooed on your forehead?"

And a familiar voice from the other side of the room, "_What happened to my arcade?_"

Mamoru chuckled as I turned back to face him.

"Do you think…?" I began, raising my eyebrow at him.

"Do I think what?"

I cast a quick glance at the rousing crowd. "Do you think they, you know, remember?"

He glanced thoughtfully over at the group of seventh-graders who had so recently attempted to asphyxiate him by sheer numbers, and were now arguing over which of the latest Sailor V trading cards was worth the most. He shook his head with a smile.

"I guess not."

He showed every intention of ending the conversation right there, but I held a finger to his lips—not that I wasn't all for some nonverbal communication, if you know what I mean, but I wanted some answers while I could still get them, too.

"What happened, Mamoru?" I asked, pushing him slightly away from me.

"Your guess is as good as—"

"I mean, before everything went flambé," I finished pointedly.

"Oh." He stopped. For the first time in my memory, his face turned a visibly deep shade of pink. "Yeah. That."

"Come on," I wheedled, grabbing his shirt with a grin as he scratched the back of his head rather uncomfortably. "What happened?"

"Erm…well, when you said—

"What?"

"When you said, you know, what you said, I sort of…lost it."

"And?" I prompted, pulling him closer.

"Aw, come on, you know what happened!"

Okay, maybe I did know—but really, it gives a girl's ego a boost to hear a man say it!

I gave him a look that I meant to say, _Either you can tell me now or you can tell me in front of these few hundred witnesses when they all wake up._

I'm not sure if my look said exactly that. Either way, though, I think he got the point, because he stopped running his hand through his hair and sighed.

"Really?"

The prolonged stare combined with continuing silence on my part replied in the affirmative.

He let out another long breath, shaking his head at me with a sheepish sort of grin. "Fine, I completely lost it and thought that we were all going to get engulfed in a giant fireball anyway and so I gave in to what I've been wanting to do for over a year now and kissed you, okay?"

Okay? Hell yes, that was 'okay'!

"Maybe," I said, suppressing a smile. Then, before he could lean in again… "We've both done some pretty stupid stuff these past few days, huh?"

"You're telling _me_," Mamoru muttered, pulling me closer to him—almost unconsciously—as the murmur in the background grew louder. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rei, Minako, Makoto, and Ami rubbing their heads and sitting up, looking around them with dazed eyes. I felt myself grinning once more in spite of myself, and a second wave of gratitude that they wouldn't remember anything washed over me as I turned back to face Mamoru again.

"Well," I said, tilting my head back to look him in the eyes, "since we've acknowledged that, there's just one more thing I've been thinking about…"

"Hm?"

"How do you think—do you…think…"

"Think what? Usagi…?"

But something else had caught my attention. A heavy and familiar-looking object that had not, I was sure, been there only a few minutes before, was now sitting on the edge of the counter.

"Usagi?" Mamoru repeated when I didn't respond. "What's wrong?"

"What?" I shook my head, staring at the thing. "Nothing. It's…"

He followed my gaze towards the black notebook sitting there, whose gold-embossed symbols caught the light with a somewhat dull-looking cast. Then he blinked and looked down at me again.

"Isn't that…" he began. Then he stopped, looking slightly confused, as if he had been on the brink of remembering something but had suddenly forgotten.

"I think…" I said—then I stopped, too. That same feeling of familiarity tingled somewhere in the back of my head, but I couldn't pinpoint it any more than I could have found a book in the national library.

We gave each other one long look—then, at the same time, we both shrugged.

"Eh," he said, grinning at me.

"Best idea you've had all day," I said, grinning back. "Now where we again?"

The last thing I heard as Mamoru leaned in to kiss me again was the shrill sound of Rei's voice in the background, demanding to know why nobody had thought to tell her about Mamoru and me, and whether or not the whole world was going to end now that we—the universe's unlikeliest couple—had finally gotten together.

She had no idea how close she had been to being right…but of course, I thought as Mamoru's lips met mine, I wasn't going to tell _her_ that.

Mystical beings work in strange ways. Up high in the nighttime sky, on that glowing pearly orb we call the moon, a pair of angelic inhabitants gazed down on the happy scene far below them. A soothing calm floated through the atmosphere, sending down a stream of shimmering light that reflected off a set of now-faded gold symbols. And if you looked closely at the full moon that night, you could almost make out the silhouettes of two sprites, their translucent hands intertwined, smiling the very faintest of smiles.

* * *

The End.

* * *

Note from Ala:

I guess this end note is where I get to really play the sentimental sap, but I've actually come to realize that I don't have that much more to add, except maybe a paltry excuse about that roller coaster known by some as Life Outside of Writing, and by others as a Sorry Excuse for Not Writing. For those of you who don't already know, I have just started a doctoral program in English Literature and am, in some ways, writing more than ever these days—just not necessarily within the fandom. So it still feels like a miracle that these last pages worked out the way they did, considering that I've been off the creative writing block officially for over a year now.

For those of you who are still active in the fandom—or for those of you who are revisiting it for old times' sake—or for whatever number of reasons you've found yourself at this end note, I just wanted to send out a huge, humongous, blimp-sized thank you. THANK YOU! Times about a googleplex. I still very much remember just how much I depended on all of your support, positive comments, and general awesomeness to get me through those dark and dreary days—you know, those best of times, and worst of times…you get the point.

If I find time, I'll still try to keep up my writing every once in a while. It might be long in coming, but hopefully it will be rewarding as well. In the meantime, don't be afraid to keep in touch! Old and new voices alike. That's one of the things I miss most about the writing for the fandom, to be frank, and I can't say enough how nice it feels to touch base every so often with familiar voices.

See you on the other side, and until next time!

Love,

Ala


End file.
